A Dying Dream
by europanya
Summary: A decade after closing the Hellmouth and doing time in Hell, Spike is living alone in San Francisco when he encounters Buffy unexpectedly. They try to rebuild a life, facing the demons within and without. Diverts from canon after BtVS S7.
1. Chapter One

**A Dying Dream**

by Europanya

CHAPTER ONE

Spike lit a cigarette and flicked the match to the ground under his boot. He smoked in silence under the bus stop awning outside his flat, listening for the steps that had lately walked in the evenings under his third-story window and echoed in his dreams. It was a methodical step that set itself apart from the rest of the city pedestrians by its effort to sound normal - that and the faint scent of something sweet - a cologne perhaps applied to hide the absence of a human skin. Only demons smelt and moved this way - and they were too few and far between for a vampire to miss, living alone above the streets of San Francisco, itching for a decent hunt.

He smoked until the fag was spent and lit the next. He tossed the butt to the growing scatter at his feet. He was bound to polish off the pack before he heard anything odd tonight. The demon, or whatever it was, knew Spike was on to him and had kept some distance ever since he'd taken it into his mind to come out to greet it face to face.

It had approached cautiously at first, keeping to 19th Avenue for a time before turning off into the quieter streets of the Sunset District and strolling under Spike's shaded Bay window. There it would stop, a perfect stop without a shuffle of imbalance and stand completely still for an hour or more while Spike listened to it, lying awake on his couch, smoking cigarettes and staring at the stained ceiling.

_You've got some balls_, he thought and considered getting up from the glow of the telly for a look once or twice. But then he'd thought the demon might not be so different from himself, alone and thirsty for a challenge. There weren't many left of them after all - vampires, demons, werewolves and warlocks-they'd all been beheaded or dusted back to Hell. Encounters with denizens of the underworld were rare now, aside from those who had been spared by Giles' born again Council decrees: himself, Angel, Clem and others who had fought on the side of the goodies or who had never harmed a hair on any head or neck of humankind. Like the demon who lived on the corner of Sunset and Moraga - Madame Soto she called herself, but she wasn't a 'she,' not by far. She kept a small medium's studio below her apartment and gave psychic readings to clients for 39.95 a visit plus tax. They let her stay because she was genuine in her cause, and being a demon, she really did know the future, or a close version of it anyway.

But Spike's romantic ideal of this lonely peeping demon under his window and its need for connection changed the night it felt brave enough to enter his flat, uninvited. It wasn't vampire at least, but it was as dark as one. It moved in the shadows, shifting with them, returning to a solid form, a humanesque form. This demon had learned to make its way about in a city where passing cars shot beams of light up and down the steep hills of the Peninsula. It had found its way into his bedroom by ducking under the intermittent splinters shining through the drawn shades. Caught up in a dream of warm skin and grasping thighs, Spike woke when the sound of the demon's even footfalls echoed under her fading moans. It stood in the corner, watching him with one eye from under a heavy hood. Spike lay there and stared back as if to say, 'Get it over with already and let me sleep.'

The demon didn't move, just stood as the scent and color of her hair fell away in Spike's darkening memory. In his sleep he'd been lying with her in the light of day, the warmth of the sun on his back was eclipsed only by the heat of her body as he drove into her. His sleep's wanderings were rarely so kind. If he dreamt of her at all it was of blood and death and carrying her broken bruised body down into the turned earth.

_Bloody bastard._

Spike threw back the sheets and chased the demon through the flat and into his kitchen where he followed it out the open window and halfway down the fire escape until it disappeared in the alley shadows under the lights of a passing bus. The racket woke the old hag downstairs who turned back the curtains and screamed to see Spike standing naked on her escape landing, breathing hard and unwittingly pointed at her window. _Fuck_.

The lights of tonight's bus struck Spike's eyes before it came to a stop in front of his butt-littered bench. The driver opened the door and nobody got out. They'd stopped for him. A passenger tugged down a window and swore. He flicked his cigarette out and got on, tossing a token into the tray. He might as well take the bus. He had no clear idea where to go.

He got off at the park. It was only a quarter-mile from his flat. If a demon was going to hide from him, it might hide here where creeps in the shadows drew little notice. Spike caught the demon's fake scent before too long and followed it along the dark paths under the towering eucalyptus. It was smart to hide here where the fog-wet scent of the trees, heavy brush and rotting dogshit masked most smells. He crossed the arboretum bridge, breathing deep, following a trace of the creature over the stink of stagnant water.

He found the demon curled up under a park bench in the redwood grove just beyond. It was sleeping. Spike kicked it.

"Get up, you pervy sod. Fancied a gander at me in the flesh, did you?"

It moved fast and before Spike could jump back it caught him clean in the groin.

"That's what I thought," he growled, bent over in stars, but was soon hot after it across the daisy field until it slipped his sight under the security lights of the caretaker's shed. The beast was foolish, brazen, perverted and slippery as horseshit in a rainstorm.

"Come on out! Don't you know who you're dealing with? You're pissing me right off!"

Spike knelt in the wet grass to shake the pain. It would fade soon enough, but it still hurt his pride. Bad enough he got no use of the equipment but to have it kicked about was downright insulting. He'd hunt this piece of shit, rip off its head and kick its bloody ashes into the gutter.

For the next week Spike hunted the demon in the park from sundown to sunup, ducking into the heavy shade to survive the days lurking under a roll of pilfered black mulching plastic. The demon was still hiding here by the scent, which it had tried to alter by covering itself now in filth and rags. But borrowed human stink only works to fool stinking humans. Spike kept his nose on it.

A stray dog sniffed him out while he tried to doze in the dry pine needles and trash under the suffocating plastic. Spike had fashioned himself a half-tent set open by carefully placed twigs to hold off the heat of the sun. The dog was looking for shade and plopped down at his feet. He stank, the dog stank and he soon kicked it out. It whined and lifted a scrawny leg on his tent pole.

"Nice life you've made for yourself, mate," he said to himself as he mopped at the fresh piss with a rag. "Sleeping in the sodding park like a bum." But to hunt a demon, one had to live like a demon, and for all the unfavorable circumstances Spike's long life had got him into, this wasn't the worst of days. At least he had something to do. As foul as he felt, at the very least he felt alive, for lack of a better word. The anger and curiosity of chasing this thing was a pleasant respite from the doldrums of post-apocalyptic immortal life. He had an apartment, an electric bill, a cable telly, and even a working dishwasher. Not that he ever used it. The reformed Council had seen to keeping him in dry ice-shipped donor blood. It wasn't fresh, but it was human and a sight better than sucking butcher's swill. Sometimes he'd get caught up in a new banal telly show about humans who cried a lot over stupid things like lost poodles and broken hearts. Sometimes Spike cried, too. The soul did that. It stuck all your pain to you like dried bubblegum. He couldn't ever escape it unless to become abominable again, and he would not do that, not even for her memory, even to the last of it as he went up in dust filled with the light of her tears.

His sojourn in Hell had not been much worse, save for the pain. But the fires of Hell bring a different pain to one who is rightfully damned and welcomes the flame to eat at cold wounds wrought by centuries of evil. Heat dissolves sin, turns regret to ash and scars are hidden in reddened skin. He learned to breathe in the boiling air and to eat smoke and spit ash until it suited him. Still, the Powers took their good sweet time in finding him, chained where he was, suspended over a chasm of liquid pain.

They offered him a long-winded prophetic choice as the Powers usually do. He felt it a trap and despite the distracting blistering of his ever-healing skin, he gave their offer some thought. He liked to think he weighed the possibility of making some difference, of joining the remains of the quest to cleanse the Earth, but truly his choice was selfish. He chose her.

Released and sent back to grass, rock and wind, Spike found himself tossed aside in a world that had grown powerful enough to no longer require his services. What could a vampire bring to the fight in a world riddled with slayers? He was mistrusted and forgotten and soon he walked alone, purging the alleys and highways for the sake of the hunt and bite. It brought no pleasure, but it was familiar.

He did not seek her out. Somehow he knew he never would. He had been gone too long. Her life must have flourished without him in peace and Spike no longer had the strength to pursue a dying dream. It was all he desired to be granted the right to exist in the same world. She had loved him out of pity, loved his body out of need, and gave him up only when she was ashamed. What good would there be in going back? There was no longer a cause to fight at her side if she fought at all. Still, to see her again, even just to say hello would be everything - to hear her speak his name, even in regret. The world could be erased of demons but nothing could rub out the stains of his history. Not even Hell.

His instincts had been correct, the Powers had tricked him. As his days wore on in ignominy, Spike would fill his mind with the memory of fire and in it could sometimes find peace, melting in the heat, until her face would come, shining through the curtains of red and strike him anew. There was only one thing to do - keep on living. So he waited for dark and set out again.

The demon knew he was being followed, there was no mistaking it now. He'd caught its stink and followed it for an hour or more, strolling casually about the park. Spike could be silent at need, but his wandering mind, already growing bored of the chase, had led him to stumble over a fallen branch. But the demon didn't falter and kept its even pace along the night trails. The trees thinned as the park dropped off and narrowed into the panhandle. Streetlights now lit the demon's face: light skin, dark lips and a fall of black hair. Familiar.

"Hey! Hold up!" Spike called out, more curious than angry.

The demon didn't stop, but the shout made it turn its head a shade to the right. The right eye was missing, buried under a knot of white scar tissue. He had seen this thing before, somewhere, long ago.

Spike ran and made a lunge for it, an easy leap that never missed. He only realized his mistake when his chin struck the pavement and the spill of blood from his tongue filled his mouth, stirring a faint hunger. He shook his head and sat up. The demon had crossed the street and was moving away, fading into the shadows of the apartments. He cursed and ran after it only to become lost behind the buildings in a tangle of upset trash cans and fallen clotheslines.

He'd been tricked again.


	2. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

The demon went away after that night. Or maybe it was just that Spike's wandering mind had elected to wander on to other things. He took a job, as he sometimes did, at a restaurant bussing tables or running pizza. This time it was pouring cheap whisky and bourbon at the pier-side _Rage_. They liked his look in there, the punk ninnies, dressed to the gills in black silk and fake blood oozing from clove-cigarette scented lips. Girls with their tits mashed together behind torn netting would stumble up to him drunk on platform boots. They'd lick their press-on vamp teeth at him until he smirked. If they took that as a come on, they'd slip over the bar to cram their sweaty pierced bellies into his crotch. Sometimes he let them, just for the cold thrill. But then he'd lift them and heave their teased blue hair and Bauhaus smiles back into the mosh. He'd close the club later, go home, have a wank, and sleep off the dawn.

He didn't drink anymore. That was surprising, especially to him. He supposed it had something to do with his visit to Hell - or maybe it was just surrendering to the futility of it all. It was more amusing to watch the living drink themselves sick and vomit it up on the parking lot ramp behind the _Rage_. On his way out some nights he'd find a couple of play-vamps cutting their wrists and licking the fresh runnels off each other's arms. It would stop him still, the raw lust of it, and all at once his instincts would flare and burn as of old. But the soul caught him every time on the heels of that ecstatic rush with a whisper–_unforgivable_. And he'd slam his head into the brick wall until it throbbed and he'd run hard back home to throw a pack of frozen red into the microwave.

He'd kept up the smokes, though - more for the distraction than the vague hit he'd get from the nicotine. Not like he was going to die of cancer or that disease where you wind up hauling an oxygen tank behind you with plugs in your nose like that pinched old bitch downstairs. She'd called the manager on him, of course. Performing a 'public deviance' at her window, she'd called it. If she only knew a fraction of the deviances he'd committed in his life, she'd drop dead right on the spot. He'd paid off the scum who owned the building 400 to keep it out of the police record. He didn't want anyone knowing where he was. He kept stashes of cash all around the city, buried in the ground or stuffed behind ceiling tiles of abandoned buildings. Most of it came from a stipend that would arrive from London every few months in a thick envelope with a note: 'Please stay out of trouble.'–R.G. He'd lost track of how much as easily as he'd lost track of the years since his return. Ten maybe, since Sunnydale was sucked into the abyss. Or was it less? However many, he still wasn't rich and the papers had long forgotten the whole nasty end-of-the-world affair.

Why he chose to hide, he didn't know. Perhaps he didn't want her to know he'd come back and have that knowledge mess up her whole perfect new-found life, wherever and with whomever that may be. No...bollocks, she knew. _Angel_ knew. The Council knew. She knew. But she didn't need to know where. But at midday, as he lay in his bed behind the shades watching the wallpaper over his head slowly peel back, he knew he kept himself dark because he didn't want to believe that she had never sought him out - not once in all these passing years. That's when the weight of the soul would threaten to break him, to crush his bones into his silent heart.

Not long after the demon had come and gone, Spike's endless life took an unexpected turn, one he would not have ever imagined coming - not in another hundred years. Buffy had come to San Francisco.

He didn't know how long she had been in town, but he guessed not long–how could he have missed her scent on the rain-lit streets? Impossible, but there she was ordering a double latte at the Union Square Daily Grind minutes before they closed. She didn't see him, he was sitting on the upper floor, trying to blow his hidden cigarette smoke out the slightly open patio door. He was wiping the rain from his face, cursing California's bloody ridiculous smoking laws and pondering a move to Las Vegas, when he heard her voice.

"Thank you; keep the change."

He jumped up so fast, he knocked his stool back into the magazine racks. She didn't notice the racket, but took her cup, opened an umbrella and went out the door into the rain. The manager did notice, however. "Hey! Put that thing out! You want to give us all cancer?"

Spike took the patio door and jumped over the wet railing down two floors to the sidewalk below, scaring the shit out of an old Asian woman covered in plastic ponchos and rolling a cart behind her. She screeched at him in Korean as he slipped around her and across the street, keeping to the shadows.

Buffy had gone into a gallery up the next block and he hung back at the corner as she looked over the paintings and sculptures. He watched her with his vampire eyes through the rain-streaked windows as she sipped her latte. She was older, of course, in her thirties now, hair cut short at a fetching angle that fell over her ears. She was dressed in a business-minded raincoat and skirt with large black rubber boots to keep her feet dry. She carried a satchel strap over her shoulder–the kind that held those book-like computers and irritating cell phones. She was beautiful.

He stepped forward, anxious to hear her voice again, but fear stopped him. He didn't yet know why she was here - perhaps just visiting or on business from her appearance. She might be awaiting a big sales conference, or an even bigger financial deal of some sort Downtown. She wasn't expecting _him_.

He watched her like a lost cat watches mice in a pet store window. Like the call of the blood, he hungered to touch her, to smell her again close, but the rain and the fear held him fast. _Sorry mate, she doesn't need you in this life. Leave her be._ He stayed still and fed his eyes as the rain soaked his head and dripped cold under his collar.

She left the gallery and continued up the street to an Italian restaurant, tossing her spent latte into the trash. Spike fished it out and slipped the lidded cup into his coat pocket then mounted a fence at the side of the establishment so he could watch her through the lit windows. She stood at the host stand until directed back into the dining room where a man and child awaited her with smiles and hugs. Spike felt his gut twist as the man kissed her mouth, just to the side of her lips and the child leapt up into her arms. _Is this what you wanted to see? Poor sod, look away before it kills you._ This time he listened to his instincts and jumped down from the wood planks where he'd been perched and wandered off blind into the rain.

It was not a brief visit. Buffy stayed in the city for nearly two weeks, someplace downtown, that's where her scent was strongest. He'd catch it, warm and lovely, as he walked to the _Rage_ at midnight with his coat collar drawn up over his head. The coat was new - his old duster had given up the ghost along with him in that unfortunate crater creation incident. He'd supposed it was time to upgrade, now that Keanu Reeves and the rest of the Matrix crew had reintroduced the fashion. The cut of the leather made him look more 21st Century but he couldn't let go of the hair - it still whipped up all creamy white, making him hard to miss and he wasn't fond of the idea of stumbling into her on accident, especially not with her husband. A meeting of that sort would not go over well: Honey, I'd like you to meet Spike. He's a vampire. He tried to kill me a half-dozen times before I decided to fuck him and leave him. Let's get mochas!

Did Johnny-boy and the kid even know about her former career? He doubted it. Spike had only caught a flash of the guy, but he was no fighter, that's for sure, his arms were too soft. He'd probably spent all his days sitting high and mighty in some high-rise office making deals and sucking back the coffee, flirting with his secretary during the day and going home to cram down dinner, kiss the kid goodnight, turn off the lights and sweat all over his...at least Riley had been a fighter. This ponce, he'd better watch his step if he ever decided to take a stroll downtown at night, that was a promise.

Eventually her scent moved away. It faded with the changing weather and left the bicycle racks and rain gutters to the common stink of city life. It hurt to sense her passing away, like a little death all over again, complete with the trip to Hell, which now consisted of staring for hours at the lip-print in pale pink on the rim of a discarded latte cup he kept perched on the wallboard next to his bed. It was the half-formed curve of the side of her mouth - the half her husband had not kissed - upper and lower lips shaped just as he remembered them, where he used to run the tip of his tongue before he kissed her deep when her mouth opened at the invitation with a sigh.

Time passed as it always did. Spike liked his job at the _Rage_; the irony of it amused him. And to feel amused was a good thing as long as it lasted. The kids who came around a lot started asking questions about him - where he was from and all that. He usually answered them straight. The truth is always stranger than fiction and the kids would laugh and shake it all off as a big joke. It wasn't a joke, and his near past was the only thing he could be truly proud of._ I saved all you sorry lot from total annihilation, didn't you know?_

There was only one kid who thought he was for real. And this kid showed it by keeping up an attitude of respect. He was a real piece of work - face tattoos and a bone in the nose. The kid would find a way to stay after-hours sometimes, wiping bar glasses and mopping piss off the urinal floor. He'd ask the hard questions. He'd ask about the slayer, the first one, or rather the one who came before the multitude.

"I don't feel like chatting about her," Spike would say flatly, pushing a broom across the neon dance floor, tangled up in long black wig hair.

"But you fought alongside her, right?"

"I did. For a few years."

"What happened to her?"

He stopped the broom, the rain and the windows came into his mind of her in her raincoat looking at art. "Buggered if I know," he lied. "I pushed off to Hell, remember?" For some reason Hell wasn't half as interesting to this wannabe blood-sucker than the damned slayer-lore. Spike liked talking about Hell.

"But she didn't just stop fighting, did she? I mean, you tell me there's still demons out there."

"There are still demons out there. And she did stop fighting. I saw her."

"But you said...?"

"Are you going to argue with me, or are you going to shut your cake-hole and hear what I have to say?"

The kid shut up.

"I saw her about a month ago here in the city. She's married and has a little pup. End of story."

"Did she come here to slay you?"

"No! What kind of arse-headed question is that? I'm no threat to her; I've got a soul. Don't you understand anything? Besides, she didn't see me."

"But you're still a vampire?"

"Yeah."

"And you could make more vampires, right?"

"Yeah. No! Piss-off before I clock you. Why in bloody hell would I make more vampires, are you daft?"

"I just think it's gotta be awfully lonely being the only one left, that's all," the kid said ominously. Maybe he was pulling his chain, or maybe he was volunteering his eternal companionship. Kids read too many bloody Anne Rice novels these days - and she wasn't even vampire, just a second class half-demon.

Spike kicked the broom back into the box room and hit the lights.

The kid came back the next week, a grin plastered across his face.

"What now?"

"I found her."

"Who?"

"The slayer, the one you don't like to talk about. She's here."

"Are you completely cracked? Don't start that shit with me. She's not here."

"Spike?"

Spike felt his dead heart slide into his gut. He turned to face the brilliance of the dance lights. In a moment he saw her - a familiar shadow forming against the back light. Buffy was standing at the end of the bar. He looked at the kid, but the bloody imp had run off. He looked back at her, caught in a state of paralytic wonder and disbelief. He inhaled sharply - _Buffy_. There'd been too many hot sweaty bodies in the room for him to pick out her scent right-off but she was here, not a figment in a raincoat, but a girl - _woman - _in jeans and sweater top.

Thinking he somehow hadn't noticed her, she waved. Spike wiped his hands on the bar rag and managed to walk over to her. "Hey, Buffy," he said as if he was meeting her at the Bronze.

She smiled - the same smile he remembered. "Spike," she said a little awkwardly. "It's good to see you."

"Yeah, it is...I mean, good to see you, too." Shit, this was just like the Bronze.

She opened her hands, "Back from Hell, no post-card, who knew?"

Spike smiled. "Sorry about that." He pointed to her. "No forwarding address."

She nodded and blew her hair back from her chin. Bloody Christ, she was upset about this. Didn't she know?

"Buffy, I'm sorry. I thought you knew."

"Well, that's all right, I mean old friends lose track of each other all the time. Take Xander for example, he keeps moving from state to state every year and I need to keep two or three address books just to..."

Spike ducked under the tabletop and came up beside her, taking her in his arms and hugging her until she stopped babbling and clung to him. He closed his eyes and buried his nose in her hair. Screw Johnny-boy, he still owned at least this much of her. The music pounded through them, but not hard enough to mask the rapid beating of her heart.

"Hey Romeo, you gonna get a room, or pour drinks?"

They broke up. She had tears in her eyes. That cheeky arse was going to get a boot in his...

"I'll come back later," she said, blinking. "I shouldn't bother you while you're working."

"Not a chance, love. I quit." Spike tore the apron from his jeans and tossed it into the glass rack where it knocked over a row of highballs. He took her arm and got them out the back door before the boss could tear-up his timecard.


	3. Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

The moon was up as he lead her down Market Street. and into an all-night cafe. They ordered coffee and sat looking at each other over the weak steam.

She worried her thin delicate hands and he scratched at his head like it had fleas.

"Look," he said finally. "I thought Giles, or Angel, or _somebody_ would have let on about me."

She shook her head. "That's everybody trying their best to protect me. The poor ex-slayer-girl who can't cross the street without her safety orange."

He leaned forward. "Buffy, there's nothing to fear with me. I didn't go mad and I didn't lose my soul." He slapped his chest as if that somehow proved it.

"But when Angel came back..."

"I'm not Angel." She flinched. That came out harsher than he'd wanted, but he meant it. When it came to monsters, Angel took first place in every race.

"I'm sorry. I just...it took a very long time to find you."

"You were looking for me? How long?"

"I had a feeling some years ago, but when I couldn't catch your trail anywhere I gave up. I was just, living, and then I found you here when I came out for the restaurant. But you kept away and I knew I had to come back to find out why."

"You felt me watching you," he said.

She looked at him. "Hello, slayer here...of course I did. And I wanted to drop everything and see you but..."

"...you had your family with you," he finished for her. No use delaying it.

She looked confused, began to say something and then much to Spike's dread, burst into laughter. She covered her mouth at his hurt, but couldn't help herself.

"It's not funny, Buffy."

She coughed and drank a swallow of coffee which sent her coughing even more.

"Here," he said, sliding his water glass to her.

She took a drink and blew her nose on her napkin. "Stephen is my business partner, and gay. That's his adopted son, Harry. I'm sorry, but he'd find that hilarious."

Spike felt like he'd been dropped off two stations back. "Stephen?"

"We came up here to look into buying out a foreclosure on a restaurant in the Mission. I'm...in the business. I help Stephen run a small chain down south, but it doesn't matter - the deal fell through." She looked sad then and Spike felt compelled to reach for her hand. She pulled back and dropped her hand in her lap. "I'm sorry," she said, looking down. "I guess there's a lot of things we don't know about each other."

"Well my story's easy enough," Spike said. "I died, went to Hell, got out on good behavior, annoyed Angel and his minions for a spell, ran about with some young slayer freedom fighters north of here until they got sick of me, came to the city, got a flat, bought three pieces of furniture and called it home. The End."

"Hmm, I don't know if I can top that. Saved the world with a little help from my friends, lost the house and everything else I owned in a big pit, got an apartment with Willow and Dawn and scraped by on a waitress' salary, Willow met a great girl and moved to Oregon where they married, Dawn went off to college on scholarship, Xander's bought up half the construction companies in the western hemisphere, married, has four kids and is always moving. I got into restaurant management and thought I'd try to buy a store of my own and blew it. That's all there is to my story."

"No husbands...?" Spike couldn't help but ask.

She shook her head. "Some almosts, but no. No husband-types stick around me for very long."

"Bloody bastards," Spike muttered.

"I'm sorry?"

He shook his head. "Where are you staying?"

She sat up straighter. "Oh, I'm near the Wharf, a hotel. It has a nice view of that...pier with all the flashing lights on it...and the sea lions. It's very pretty. Do you really live in an apartment?"

"I do. Four walls and a door. The crypts around here are filled with bloody bums. Finish your coffee and I'll take you there."

They fell into talk during the walk up. It was late for her, he could hear it in her voice, but she was determined to keep up with him for the moment and that made Spike glad inside. They talked about old times, old friends, stupid things they'd both done during the Hellmouth years. They talked about their former days of chivalry, when they all fought together. Having her here had suddenly brought it all alive again as if it were yesterday and not a yellowed newspaper headline. For all their chatting, they kept careful from touching on their own past. Perhaps that was best.

She was nuts about the flat. She tore through the rooms, marveling at his salvation store furniture covered in fitted sheets to hide the wear. Her low heels clicked across the hardwood floors as Spike watched her move from bedroom to bath and back again, like a young girl playing house. She checked broom closets and pantry, oohing over his toilet rolls and towels. She even poked her nose in the fridge. It only held one item and lots of it. "Oh..."

He laughed, "You forget I drink blood?"

"It's been a while since I've been in a vampire's kitchen," she said, closing the door and leaning back against it, looking at him with a fondness that made Spike feel like his belly would melt.

"It's good to see you, Buffy," he whispered as the passing cars cast red and blue light over her face.

They sat on the couch in the dark, watching an Iron Chef marathon and eating potato chips until dawn threatened to break through the shades. Eventually, her head fell back against the sheet-cover and her eyes closed. Spike found her a blanket and removed her shoes, lifting her legs up onto the cushions so she could sleep on undisturbed. He wound down the shades, but tiny muted strips of light fell across her nose and over her flitting eyelids. He had meant to go to bed and leave her in peace, but her sleeping face drew him in as he sat on the armrest and filled his eyes. There were more lines to her face, delicate ones that somehow made her look even more beautiful. To see her again and to hear her voice was more than he had ever hoped for. To talk about old times with a friend, to talk about anything with a friend, was marvelous. But there were things she was keeping from him - important things, he felt. Things that were weighing her down. Things that would not all break to the surface in one evening.

_If she leaves tomorrow, I won't be able to bear it, _he thoughtHe'd go and sleep now a little, but if it meant singeing half his skin off, he swore to stay close to her.

The click of the front door woke him some hours later and he grabbed the sheet about himself and chased her halfway down the entry hall stairs.

"Where are you going?"

She heard him and stopped, a flush of amusement crossed her face. "I'm...going back to my hotel for a while. You know - take a shower, change clothes, eat food - that sort of thing. Maybe I can see you later?"

He gripped the rail. _Steady on, mate; don't frighten the lady. _

"Later? Later is good," he said casually. "It's perfect, in fact. I've got lashings of things to do today anyway and I'll come around after..."

"Spike. It's daylight. You're unemployed. I'm not catching a train. Why don't you meet me at that over-lit pier around...?"

"Six-thirty? Sun goes down about then."

She nodded, perky. "Six-thirty is good. I saw a Merry-Go-Round. Meet me there." She smiled up at him as the big door opened and the light poured in below, taking her away.

He slipped out at six, kept to the shady side of the streets until the sun dipped below the buildings, hopped a trolley and made it to the Pier 39 carousel by 6:20. He found her there licking a wad of pink cotton candy and tossing skee-balls for tickets.

"Hey."

"Hey to you, too," she said, handing him her sticky cone to hold while she bent and threw the wooden balls. He sniffed at the sickly sweet fluff and held it away from his shirt.

"I used to bring Dawn to a place like this in Sunnydale. We'd buy popcorn and ride the carousel until it got dark."

"I'll warn you," he said with a nod to the spinning equine. "Those whirling dervishes make me puke."

She wrinkled her nose and bent to collect her tickets as they punched out of the machine. "That I'd rather not live to see. Look, we can get a teddy bear!"

Bear in hand, he followed her out the back door to the wooden walks that circled the pier overlooking the Bay below. It was a breezy night and she walked close to him for more of a windbreak than warmth.

"You cold?" he asked. "Want to drop in for a bite somewhere?"

She eyed him as they walked. "You don't eat...really."

"Sure I do. When I feel like it."

"Bar food, as I recall."

He tried to look hurt. "I'll have you know, living in San Francisco has given me quite a taste for squid."

"Calamari," she corrected.

"Right, well, whatever the bloody hell they're called, I like biting off their squiggly little legs."

That made her laugh. She was in one of those silly moods that used to drive Spike batty trying to figure out if he was being mocked or entertaining.

"All I'm saying is, I'd like to buy you dinner - a proper one."

She hooked her arm in his. "Lead the way, sailor."

Her mood settled throughout dinner, turned more cautious and guarded. Maybe it was the dim lighting or the bottle of wine he did little to help her drink, but her eyes stayed more to her plate and the windows than to him. He sat back in the curved booth and stretched his legs out under the table as the waiter collected their plates.

"Buffy, why are you here?"

She looked at him now, wiping her lips on her napkin as if she wished she could hide under it. She knew he was serious.

"I wanted to find you," she said. "I wanted to see you. I wanted to see how you were."

"Well that's all done now. You've found me. You've seen me. What now?"

She shrugged. "I...check out the sights for a few days, buy a return flight and go home."

He was silent some moments.

"Why?"

Her eyes darted from his and looked as if they might spill over with tears. Her lip trembled and she sighed to keep it off.

"Spike..."

He sat up and leaned an arm on the table, waiting. She kept her head turned as if the floor would open up and an exit would appear just by wishing.

"Please," she whispered.

"Nothing's changed, Buffy," he said. "I still love you."

"I know."

"Then, why did you come back?"

The tears were down her cheeks now. "I don't know."

He fingered the edge of his butter knife. "I think you do."

She caught hold of herself, took a finger wipe at her eyes and faced him. "Yeah, how's that? Why don't you tell me since you've got all the answers."

He sat back and blew out a load of air. "What is it you've got back home? A little room, a car, some creature comforts and a cat, I'd wager. A job, helping some other bloke build his dreams while you send your paycheck down the loo in government taxes and video rentals. Am I right?"

She gave a self-deprecating shrug. "It's not so bad. And it's DVDs and a bowl of goldfish, I'll have you know. And there's Dawn and my friends..."

"Get your story straight, love. Last night you told me she was off east - little bit's got herself a nice Catholic boyfriend and a flat, happy as larks. She don't need her mummy anymore. She's got on with her life–just like the rest of the ol' Scoobies. You get a pretty card from them each holiday with a sentence or two and a ring on your birthday if they find the time. Life's just got them all tied up in ribbons, doesn't it?"

"Fuck you, Spike," she said quietly.

"You did, once."

She threw up her hands. "Ugh! I knew it! I knew it would be the same. You just can't let it go, can you?"

He shook his head. "You know I can't. You knew what you would find here but you came all the same. I had the decency this time to keep off."

"But..." her hands were still fluttering. "...you and I have nothing to offer each other and you know it. We've been all through it before. It was a train wreck waiting to happen. We're too…different."

He cocked his head at her. "How do you figure that? What are we really other than two cast-off superheroes with no world to save anymore. They've gotten on without us. They've gotten on without _you_, slayer. It's what you wanted, your very dream, to be set free. But here's where we differ because I know what it is to be free and it bites like iron claws at you, dragging you down until just waking up in the morning is a fight."

She'd lowered her head again. "I don't know what you're talking about. I have a life, it gives me what I need. It's simple. I'm happy."

"But you're not alive."

She looked daggers at him. "Neither are you."

She was angry. That was good. He wanted her to get angry, pound her fists, get some blood in her cheeks again. He knew it wouldn't take much - the strings were still there, those gossamer webs that held them together - it was only a matter of finding the right ones to pluck. She'd kept quiet and broody while he paid the check and shot back his coffee. He'd figured he'd need it to keep his wits one step ahead of hers.

They kept walking together, that was the thing of it. He kept his mouth busy with a smoke while she hurried to keep his stride, arms folded like a moody teen who knows she has to stay with her parents though she'd rather die from the shame of it. He stopped at the Marina where the sailboat bells clang in the dark and the sea lions lie sleeping on the distant jetty. The wind had kept up so she joined him on the stone bench and they sat in silence.

"What was this thing you wanted to do?" he asked at length. "Something about a restaurant?"

"It was a buy-out," she said. "A sandwich shop. Stephen knows some people out here; he tried to help me out by going in with me on a business loan."

"What happened?"

"Banks aren't too keen on lending to an ex-slayer. Too much liability if I drop the soup bucket and take up a stake again."

"What sort of dosh did you need to take it outright?"

"About 20 thousand for the equipment and taxes. Way beyond my credit limit."

"I've got about that much, I think, if you want it."

"Spike, I didn't come here to hit you up for money."

"No, but I'm offering. You've seen my flat; I've got no sights on spending it."

She shook her head. "I can't ask you to do that. Besides, I don't even know if it's..."

"Shhh...you hear that?" Spike turned his ear to the grassy park behind them.

"Hear what?"

He listened for a moment. "Bugger, it's nothing. Never mind it. Go on..."

She'd turned around on the bench, her eyes wide and bright. "What did you hear?"

He hid a grin. "I had a demon following me a month or so back. Never did catch the sod. Liked to hang about under my window while I was sleeping."

"You still have demons here? What kind?"

"Some shadow shifter or other; hides under the light. Long black hair and one eye, tried to mask its smell from me. I chased it all over Golden Gate Park. It socked me in the cods and took off."

She looked at him and snickered.

"Brilliant. I'd like to return the favor if I could find the bloody bastard. You want to give it a shot?"

"You mean patrol?"

He shrugged. "If you like."

"If you can keep up," she said and leapt over the back of the bench into the foliage.

CHAPTER FOUR


	4. Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

Spike chased her for an hour or more, up the grassways and over the 101 Freeway into the wooded Presidio. He let her keep ahead, pretending to rush to catch up whenever she turned to ask his augmented senses for a fresh direction. There wasn't much to hunt around here, in the military hospital ruins, but he kept her busy climbing over brick walls and crawling under fallen logs. His demon did not show its pale face, but to his surprise he caught the light step of a vampire crossing the golf course at the top of the hill.

"Spike!" She grabbed his arm when they saw it diving off into the shrubbery. She was breathing hard; there was dirt on her face and her hair was all gorgeously whipped about.

"What?"

"I'm unarmed."

He flashed his fangs at her. "I'm not."

The poor bugger never saw what was coming and Spike had jumped into the hedges and beaten seven shades of shit out of it before Buffy caught up to him with a shorn bench rail.

"Spike! Wait! We can't! He's got papers!"

"Bloody hell!" He kicked it down on its belly - a familiar laminated yellow card was clenched in its shaking fist. Spike flicked it out of its hand. "Council Certified Legal Resident–do not molest. St. Mary's Priory Relief Shelter." He threw down the card. "Oh, balls, we've caught a bloody soup kitchen skivvy."

"Don't dust me! I serve the poor! I serve the poor!"

"Oops," she said, pulling Spike back and apologizing to the pathetic nit with a sympathetic hand up and dust off. It stumbled off threatening to sue and she turned back to him with a grin. "I knew it was too good to be true. Looks like your town's just fresh out of evil."

Spike shook the hunt-lust from his face. "It has its moments. There's sewers here, you know. No telling what might wash up. And a tidy set of war ruins on the cliffs with tunnels - lots of nooks for nasties to hide in. We could go have a look..."

She touched his arm. "It's okay, Spike. Thank you for the run, but I should be getting back to the hotel."

He tried to conceal his disappointment behind a good nod. "All right, then. I'll see you back."

Spike leaned against the green stucco wall outside her hotel room as she fished for her key card. Their disrupted chase had stirred him up and he wanted to say goodnight, bugger out and go home for a pint of cold blood and a colder shower.

"Buffy, I..."

She looked at him, softly. "Don't say you're sorry, Spike. It's been fun. It really has. Come on in, if you like. I don't mind."

Despite the warning ache of the soul, he slipped in behind her and shut the door, clicking the latch. The hotel emergency escape map stared back at him. _What now, mate? You've already said your piece. The lady isn't biting. _This was just as wrong now as it ever was, but it sucked him in all the same. Christ, the scent of her was everywhere, on his clothes, in his hair. He just couldn't help himself–that'd been the problem from the start.

He turned about. She was sitting at the edge of the bed, pulling off her shoes. "Buffy, what are we doing?"

She kept her eyes on the floor. "I'm trying very hard not to think about that right now," she said, but her color was up. She hadn't been the only one thirsty for a good hard kill.

He turned the chair out from the desk and plunked himself down in it. "Talk to me."

She didn't at first, just kept a solid stare at the wall socket. But her breathing spoke to him as she struggled with the weight of letting go of her thoughts.

"It started out great, you know. Sleeping in, enjoying the daylight for a change. Will and I finally got the chance to reconnect and Dawn was doing so great, it's like none of the past years clung to her at all. It was wonderful - everything I wanted. But it didn't last. Not for nearly long enough. Years went by, Dawn left, Willow left...I tried to find a life, a companion, a career, but...finally I realized I missed what we had when the world was full of evil. I missed everyone all so much. Even you. So much so that everything I touch now falls apart. Why is it so hard for me when everyone else just catches a cloud and goes off like in some fairytale and I'm left..." her words choked her.

...with the dragons."

She looked at him, a face of sadness and shame, always the bloody shame. "You were right, Spike. I do come back to you. I always do."

He sighed. "Because I'm the bloke who understands. The shoulder you cry on when all the nice people in the world let you down. I've heard this song before–I know it note for note." His words were bitter and her pretty mouth parted in surprise.

"Look, sweetheart. You know who I am. You know what I am. So let's stop acting shocked anymore. I've been a monster most my life - can't defend that. I'll never be deserving of forgiveness, so unlike Angel I've stopped looking for it. But there's something I learned in Hell that he didn't - pain is easy, it spares you from longing, it delivers you from love. It would have delivered me from you in time, if I'd let it. But I had a choice, and I shook off the ash and clawed my way right back to you. You don't love me. I've made my peace with it. I wear it on my skin like a brand and I don't fight it anymore. It's my lot. So I'm going to get up now and walk out that door and keep on walking and you'll pack up your regrets and self-pity and fly back home to the good life and the good people who don't give a shit about you and grow old and bent waiting for your lonely days to end. That's just how life is, Buffy, and it's a right bloody bitch. The damned don't have it much worse." He stood up and put his hand on the doorknob to make good on his promise. "When you're ready to stop chasing fairytales and face your darkness, you'll know where to find me."

He turned the handle, but the safety bar jammed and the door wouldn't open more than an inch. He pulled at it hard - the jamb splintered but it still wouldn't give. "Bloody hell."

Small hands touched his back and he stopped. Her arms came around him and her head pressed to his back and all his armor fell away like dust. He slumped into the door and it resealed itself. He slid to the floor and she came down with him.

_Is this pity?_ he wondered fleetingly as her mouth found his. _I don't care._

He wanted to make it sweet, to show her the difference between loving him with a soul and without. He wanted it to be like that one night years ago when they were lovers and had both been so hot for it that she finally let him in her bedroom window, though little sis was sleeping just down the hall. He had her in her girlhood bed, her warm legs clamped around him and her chest heaving and her lips bit closed while her arms went up over her wild eyes, holding the headboard steady as he fought the damned bedsprings not to give them up. To want it so badly and to have to hold it nearly all back in his gut was torturous, it made the pleasure burn hot all up his spine, melting into the strangled groans he made as he pressed his face into her hair where it lay all golden and twisted around her neck. He'd lost it in the end, when the tension finally tore loose–all light and madness. He kissed her lips and face, whispering his love to her over and over and she'd let her arms come around him as she held him to her breast, soothing him and quieting him with her silent hands.

But it wasn't to be. The lust rose in him as badly as it rose in her and they were back to clawing rugs and breaking furniture. Thank bloody Christ the bed was on a platform and the mattress was hard and firm as she broke from their devouring kisses and half-shed clothing to turn herself over on hands and knees before him, exposed and slick in the light of the swinging lamp. Her nipples were pointed and her hazel eyes wide with begging. He knelt and buried his face in her, eating her up from pearl to starfish - feasting on the hot life-hole where she lived and burned. His tongue was in it, his fingers were in it, his cock was in it like some merciless dream of his long cold nights all come back to life, binding him up in tight wet manacles. She hurt him just a little, just to make it good and he loved her for it, cursed her for it and took her hair in his fist and fucked her until she wailed, like the world was ending outside all over again.

When he came to, the lamp shade at his elbow was split and the light bulb was crushed into the rug. There was blood on his knee and his palm, his own. _Bloody hell_. He lifted his head to take in the damage. The chair he'd sat in earlier was gone, the telly was two inches from teetering off its stand, the chain lamp was buggered all to hell and the sheets...she was in them somewhere nearby, all tangled up like a blond sidewalk burrito. He crawled to her and laid his throbbing forehead on her hip. She stirred and swatted feebly at him where his mashed hair was tickling her belly.

"I know," he said, sitting up. "You don't need to say it. I'll go."

"Spike?" She lifted her face from the pillow as if to say something but the general destruction of the room stopped her short. "Did we do all...this?"

"Don't worry; I'll pay for it," he said despondently. "Hand me my boot, love."

"Wait." She touched his knee but her eyes were shy. "You don't have to go."

He reached out and lifted her chin. "Are you sure?"

She kissed his scarred eyebrow. "I'm sure."

Spike stroked her hair until she fell asleep, then he settled her head back against the pillow, dressed and slipped out into the night.

He took his time walking home along the quiet streets trying not to think - trying not to mind the growing heat of the soul which had swelled up in him like a bruise after a hard fight. He'd never quite learned how to live with it and now that he'd been with her again, he knew he had no idea what to expect, so it was best not to encourage it with the flicker of recent recollection.

He went upstairs into his flat and went to bed but he didn't sleep, couldn't sleep. There was too much bloody ruckus in his skull - half his head was yammering at him to get up and run back to her while the other half quailed in terror.

The hall buzzer rang about an hour after sunrise. He slipped on his jeans and hit the intercom on the wall by his front door. "Yeah?"

"Spike, it's me. Can I come up?"

The soul flared and burned into his throat. "Sure, love; let me buzz you in."

He opened his door to find her coming up the hall stairs dragging her suitcase behind her. He smiled as the plastic wheels bumped over his threshold. "This is sudden," he quipped.

She rolled the bag to a stop in the middle of the room and sat down on it, looking guilty. "Well, no one's ever accused me of being subtle. I was asked to leave the hotel–something about guests complaining I was keeping a Rotweiller in my room."

He grinned devilishly. "I'll take that as a compliment." He shut the door and stood with his arms crossed over his bare chest and watched her sitting on her suitcase worrying her lip and staring at the hardwood floor.

She finally spoke. "Spike, last night was...it was like...getting all turned inside out and wound around in the wash for a few unbelievable hours. But I..."

"Buffy..." he held up a hand. "Before you say anything there's something _I_ have to say and it's going to be very hard for me, so I just need you to sit there a moment and let me get my head together." He left her there, watching him strangely, while he went to his bedroom for a shirt, ashtray and a pack of smokes. Then he came back and sat on the floor in front of her with his arm up on one knee and lit up, blowing smoke to the side and flicking ash down into the belly of a ceramic sea otter while he summoned his will.

"I need to ask you to leave," he said at last, looking up into her confused eyes. "I'm sorry, love. But I do."

She blinked. "You want me to get a new hotel? I can do that, I shouldn't have just barged in."

"No, Buffy, I need you to _leave_. Take your valise and go back home."

There was pain in her eyes and he had to look away. "Why? I thought...?"

"You see," he said, watching the muted sunlight as it rose behind the blinds. "I have this great wound in me." He touched his chest. "It's been with me a while now and strangely enough I'd almost forgotten about it in recent years, it'd scarred over apparently in the flames. You put it there, cut it in me years ago when you turned me out of your bed. I understand why you made that choice and I forgive you and all that, but the truth is, last night, it got tore up a bit. I can feel it bleeding and I don't fancy a trip back to see the Big Red Man downstairs to get it all stitched up again."

"Spike..." she said, her voice soft with apology but she had no more words than that.

He caught her gaze, gentle. "Last night...was bloody incredible. I knew it would be, and I couldn't stop myself from letting it happen - I'm still that weak. I didn't give it much thought and I don't think you did either, that's the beauty of it. It's done and I don't have any regrets. What concerns me is I doubt you gave buying your one-way flight out here to find me much more thought than last night. It drove you here, whatever this thing is that refuses to die between us, and its got us all turned about again not knowing what bloody direction we're stumbling in. I can't hardly think straight when I'm near you, but I do know in my heart that it's got to stop and that will only happen if you leave."

She was quiet for a spell. No tears, but a sorrow shaded her eyes. "When you died..." she began. "...the more recent 'died,' not the 19th century one...I'd spend hours at the lip of the crater, just looking down into it, hoping somehow some night you'd come crawling back out of it. I waited for days and nights. It haunted me, the thought that you might not be coming back - that eternity is real and you were someplace so far away that I'd never be able to feel you again. It got so bad I even asked Willow - I begged her to somehow find a spell that might give me just the smallest crack in the deep so that I might catch a flicker of you–to know that you still existed, somewhere. She was going to do it for me, too. Anything to help me get beyond it. But I said no, in the end, because I thought if I did catch a glimpse and saw your pain it would only make it worse."

He shook his head. "I should have told you; it doesn't matter, nothing matters in Hell. There are no gestures of hello or goodbye–not for the damned, we don't deserve it."

"But you got there because you saved the world - your soul did."

He took another drag and grinned. "Yeah, that felt pretty good."

"I don't know how long it took, but it seemed forever, when I was finally able to fall asleep at night and not imagine I could hear your screams. I was working, taking care of people, days went on and then one night I had a dream and I knew you were back. Here, in this world. I was on my own then, Willow and Dawn were gone, so I took a month off work and scoured most of California looking for you. I went to see Angel."

"Angel?" Spike said. "When was this?"

"About four years ago or so. He didn't help me. I didn't think he would, but I suspected he was hiding something from me. I imagine he thought it was for my own good."

Spike nodded. "He was there when I came back, you know, into this world. I think my first act of good faith was to punch his fucking nose - but he helped me, the bloody sod."

She looked amused.

"Oh, don't get me wrong I still hate every dead inch of him. Some things Hell can't even change. He still thinks I'm trying to imitate him–the soul, the holiday in Hell, falling for you - he did it all first...and better. I'll give him that. But not the Hell part, oddly, no. I was a bloody champion in Hell. I think they've still got my portrait up in a trophy case over a sulfuric pit somewhere."

"Spike, this isn't about Angel."

He rubbed his eyes and snuffed out the cigarette. "I know. I'm sorry. He rankles me to no end. I can't believe the ninny didn't tell you I was back. He knows where I am." He looked at her, questioning. "Does he know where you are?"

She shook her head. "No, nobody does. I imagine they're all worried, too. You're right. I should go home."

"Do something for me, love," he said quietly. "Go home and forget about me, move on, grab a husband and pop a kid. Be kind to yourself."

"I've tried that already. It didn't work."

"Try it again," he said sincerely and the whole of his bleeding soul ached with it. He shrugged. "Just for a bit and if I'm still under your skin–you know you can find me."

She didn't answer but he could sense her breath easing.

"But if you do come back to me," he said, tapping her ankle. "Make no mistake, you bring nothing but yourself and you burn the rest behind you. I am forever–_we_ are forever, until the end of your days, and for you, that will be a very long time."

She looked at him, weighing his words with her eyes. There was truth in them. "I'll call you, I guess."

He smiled at her. "I don't have a phone."

They were both exhausted, so he gave her the bed for a few hours while he stretched out on the couch. Morning passed into noon as he lay listening to her in the next room shifting softly in his sheets. His eyes had just closed when she came to him without words and he offered his arms to her, wound them up tightly together on the narrow dime-store cushions and at last, they both fell deeply into sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

She flew home that evening and Spike shut his blinds with a heavy wave at her vanishing taxi, knowing full well she might not ever come back. He had more memories of her to dream on though and that, after all, wasn't so bad.

He did dream of her. Every night. Just like before but now the dreams were kinder, fed from the recent sight, smell and sound of her. She wasn't dying anymore - she was breathing, smiling, curling her fingers in his hair, whispering all sorts of amazing sweet-dirty things to him. So it was little wonder he woke to the odd feeling he was being watched, again.

"Oh, it's you. Piss-off. I'm enjoying this one, can't you tell?"

The demon took one certain step forward into the beam of the streetlight where it lit the foot of the bed. The dead eye was bleeding, a railroad spike fit snug into the socket.

"Well, hello," Spike said, sitting up. "We have met. Long ago, was it? Hmm, when did I give up that game? When iron became scare? When they finished the Great Northern Railway? Turn of the Century? Tell me, were you human then, when I killed you - or did I make a mistake and snuff a demon? Something tells me it was no mistake. Maybe I sent you to Hell anyway and you earned your pointy tail after the fact. Was I good to you? Did I drive it in nice and true with a hammer, or did I play it slow, inch by inch...tap...tap...tap..."

The demon didn't answer, just stood and let the old blood drip onto the floor.

"That's good hardwood flooring you're ruining. Mind if I ask you to take it outside?"

The blood stopped, reversed itself and shot back into the obliterated eye, sealing over with the scar.

"That's a nice trick if I do say so. But let's cut to the bone of the matter. You're dead and I couldn't give a kipper's dick. I'm also not of the mind to put on my boots and chase you. So make like a good revenge demon and have at it already with the revenging, or else bugger out!"

Spike reached and threw his sea otter ashtray at it. The creature slipped somehow under the streetlight to come up on the opposite side of the bed. The otter hit nothing but wallboard and decapitated itself in the corner. Spike sighed and fell back on the sheets, drawing the blanket over his shoulders. "Suit yourself," he said, turning on his side and nestling his head in the pillow. "I've got better things to think about."

He closed his eyes but the demon didn't move. "So this is how it goes, then. She comes, you go away. She leaves, you come back to badger me." He opened an eye. "Maybe you're not such a git after all. That girl's your worst nightmare, all wrapped up in a pretty package. When she comes back to me, we'll have words about you, don't doubt it. Then we'll come after you, the two of us together and she'll drive a nice sharp wood stake into your left eye to match the job I did on the right - bookends of you will. And if that don't scare you, well, sod-off, I'm going to sleep."

The demon stood still, waiting, until the vampire began to dream again.

Spike was right, she did come back, three weeks later-but she didn't take the whole 'leave everything behind' part of his speech seriously and double-parked a U-Haul out on the street below his Bay window, arriving at sundown and honking the horn.

He tore open his door, leapt down over the hall railing and grabbed her up just as she cleared the light. "Hello, love," he said, spinning her around and kissing her hard. "Welcome home."

"Less talk, more tongue."

Whatever the soul had held back before came up like a flashfire and drove his cock into his fly and his tongue into her mouth as they wrangled each other back into the nearest wall in a frantic mess of mashed lips and greedy hands.

"Ow, watch the eye-teeth," she said, licking her nipped lip as he let her go to bend and throw her up over his shoulder, hauling his prize up the stairs.

She pounded his back. "Put me down! You...you...vampire! I left the engine running!"

"My motor's running, too. The lorry can wait. You're coming with me for a proper hello."

A few of the neighbors on his floor popped their nosey heads out of their doors to see what all the commotion was.

"Go on back in," he said as he carried a kicking thrashing squealing Buffy down the hall and through the door of his flat. "My girl's come home, is all. Go mind your suppers!"

He got her in the door and kicked it shut behind him. She was on him like a tree kangaroo, leaping up to grab him by the hair and wrap her legs around his groin, grinding and drinking him down like she was thirty days in the desert. She pulled up the end of his shirt, eager for skin and tangled it about his head so he couldn't see. He carried her blind, while his fingers struggled with the tie at the back of her backless blouse, tearing off the knot when his legs struck couch. They fell over the armrest together and she was under him, pulling off his shirt, her top all askew, pinned by the full of his groin. She whimpered for it, scratching his belly as she scrabbled for the belt buckle.

"Think about me much on the drive up?" he asked, sliding his hand up her leg and under her skirt. Her soft flesh was hot and moist as his fingers slid between skimpy lace and thigh, deep into her salivating snatch.

She ground down on him, moaning, soaking his hand. "Only about every three minutes, for eight hours or so."

He grinned and licked his lip. "I can tell," he said, giving her a good stir, not that she needed it. What she did need was for his belt to come loose, so he pulled out his fingers to undo it as best he could with a slippery hand. "Damned leather..."

That made her growl. "Hurry up." She leaned up to nip his jaw and work her hot tongue into his ear.

He pushed her off and sat back on one knee to do battle with his pants. She kicked him in the thigh as a reminder. "Hey!" he said, wiping his hand on her leg. "If you hadn't got yourself all over me so fast I could be quicker about it."

At the door someone was knocking. "Go away!" he shouted and got himself out and his jeans down past his knees with the help of her ankles. She dug her nails into his shoulders as he shoved them back together.

"God!" he cried out as he sank deep in her. He shut his eyes. She swallowed him up, sending him heat from balls to bowels.

"God has nothing to do with this. Fuck me."

He obliged, one foot on the floor and the other sucked into the cushions and his jeans tangled up in-between. She wriggled under him to hit a better angle and he cursed, burying his face at her neck, latching on and giving her soft pale flesh a good suck.

"Harder!" she cried, raking his back, but he didn't know if she meant teeth or cock so he went for both - he couldn't hardly help himself anyway. Her pulse beat under his tongue as he brought it on, giving her pelvic bones a good rattle and pound when the door thudded again.

"What's going on in there?"

"Fuck," he panted, lifting his head. Nose to nose, his eyes burned in hers as the couch groaned and scooted across the floor thrust by thrust. "Why do the neighbors always decide to come calling when I'm shagging a girl?"

"What girls?"

He laughed wickedly. "Got you there, love. Oh...balls."

"What?"

"I'm going to bloody come already."

She hit him, "Don't you dare!"

He blinked. "I think that might of worked. Do it again."

She clocked him good under the chin, bringing stars.

"Nope, my bad..._shiiit_."

He panted on her left breast while the lights came back on in his head. She was lying under him breathing just as hard and twice as pissed. He sat up and shook it off. "Oh, right. Get narky. It's been a while, you know. Like it's some great tragedy you've got to wait a whole bloody minute for me to..."

The door came down in a shatter of paint.

"Do you mind!"

The podge from 4C was standing in his living room holding the hall fire extinguisher as a battering ram and turning nearly as red.

"You broke my bloody door!" Spike said, trying to get up and falling flat to the floor in a tangle of Levis. "Ow!"

She was giggling at him, holding her torn blouse over her nipples.

"What's so damned funny? And do be a dear and close your legs."

"It's okay," she said, blowing her hair out of her face and sitting up. "Now my bedroom set can fit through."

"Bedroom set?"

"Bedroom set?" Their intruder repeated.

"Oh, hi! I'm Buffy Summers. It looks like we're going to be neighbors," she said with a killing smile that made Spike fall in love with her all over again.

The bedroom set wasn't the least of it. There was a living room set, too - wardrobe, end tables, dining table, a credenza and about four thousand individually wrapped kitchen utensils. And clothes - a department store's worth. The bathroom was buried under an avalanche of cosmetics and styling goo. He was afraid to go in there anymore - for fear of getting powdered to death. Just about everything Spike had owned had been replaced or shoved aside for Goodwill to come pick up for another go. Not that either of them had much need for an exercise bike or entertainment center that first blurry week. Hardly a box had been unpacked - most were merely stripped open for basic needs like toothpaste, handcuffs and massage oil in various flavors - and the feather duster. More often then not, Spike found himself wrapped up in bubble wrap, rather than unwrapping it. Today was no different.

"Don't close your eyes," he whispered urgently, moving in her where'd they fallen into a pile of Tupperware after a half hour of fruitless cereal bowl sorting. "Let me show you how this feels." He brought it all down and held them tight and slow together in their final throes, melting into her with his soul in his eyes, the one he had sold his flesh and bought in blood for her.

There were other new things that had moved into his home, too. Things he rather liked: nips and kisses and warm soft skin nestled next to his exhausted flesh in the middle of the afternoon. The goldfish were decent. A little smelly, but nothing a squirt of Lysol couldn't fix. Sated for the time being, they crawled out of the kitchen to nest on her mattress, still unassembled and lying in the middle of the living room floor, covered in undressed pillows and spare blankets.

"I used to dream of you, you know," he said, lying beside her as his skin cooled, watching her eyes as she looked for animal shapes in the ceiling cracks. "All the time - off having a happy life somewhere. I even dreamed of you with that partner of yours, the bugger with the kid all cozied up in some tract house with a dog. Those dreams were the hardest to wake from, even more than the ones where you'd come back to me and find me in my bed and do all sorts of unmentionable things. Don't get hot, it never came out right - some pissed-off slime-coated thing would crawl in bed, too, or my mother would appear and scold me."

"You remember your mother?"

"Of course I do. All us vamps are cursed with perfect memory. Angel never told you? Our dreams are even more perfect, real as the night - sight, sound and smell - every minute of my life in archive just waiting for sleep to come punch the numbers on the jukebox and play a tune."

"That explains a few things."

He narrowed his gaze at her. "How's that?"

"How you could never let go of me. No matter how many times I asked you to, often punctuated with a kick to the nose."

"Those were the days," he said grinning and passed a hand over her soft hair. "Would you grow your hair for me?"

"My hair?"

"Yeah," he said, twirling it around his ring finger. "Long, like it used to be. God, I loved it like that. Not that you aren't sexy as hell with it like this, Christ knows, but..."

"Okay."

He blinked. "Okay?"

"Okay. Something difficult about that?"

"No...just not used to getting my way so easily."

"Oh, I'll make you pay for it in other ways. Bad annoying ways...like changing light bulbs and opening cans and stuff like that. Useful man stuff."

"I'm a man now, am I?"

She looked demure. "Well, parts of you certainly are, and then there's that _other_ side of you...that tenacious side...and, well.."

"Yeah?"

"You'll do for a decent man-vampire-boyfriend, sure."

"Boyfriend now, is it?" He smiled and rolled over on his back, started to reach for a pack of smokes that were god-only-knew-where and scratched his chest instead. "That sounds serious."

"Sure it's serious. In case you haven't noticed, I've moved in. Besides, hasn't it always been serious? With you at least, with all your brooding and begging."

He settled his arms behind his head. "Begging? I never begged."

"Ah, you did. There was definitely begging...and whining and crying."

He elbowed himself up. "Crying? I never blubbered over you."

"No?" She began to count on her fingers. "There was the time Xander caught you behind the tree when I came back from the dead. And then there was the time that I _was_ dead, but I guess it was manly enough to cry then, and ooomph!" He grabbed her and pulled her across him and kissed her long and thoroughly until he sapped the breath out of her.

"Promise me," he said, his forehead to hers. "Promise you won't make me cry ever again."

She sat back a little and licked the taste of him from her lips. "I promise, sweetie. No tears for either of us."

The endearment sent a flood of warmth through his dead veins. "Good," he said, and pulled her to him so she could feel it.

CONTINUED IN CHAPTER SIX


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six 

Spike sat on his haunches and watched the gnarled six-legged beasts threaten the big guy into the corner - claws out and snapping, they took turns swinging at his tentacle eyes. The big one fought back hard, cracking his lumpy fist over the flat heads of the others, fending them off as best he could with giant blue rubber bands binding his pinchers.

"I know how you feel, mate," he said and stood, pointing him out to the crab seller. "We'll take that one, the big bad in the corner. Looks like he's gonna lose tonight anyway."

The man gave Spike a wary look and grabbed the creature up, all wiggling and dripping with a pair of long heavy tongs and brought it over a steaming steel vat bubbling with the stinking remains of its former fellow inmates.

"Watch this, Buffy. Here comes the best part." The tongs released and the crab took a one-way dive, going from green to red in a few boiling seconds. Spike shivered. "Oooh, I love that."

She looked unimpressed. "Spike, I think you're enjoying watching our dinner cook just a little too much."

"Well, they've got to boil 'em alive. Otherwise the meat gets all tough." He looked to their chef who wasn't playing. "Right? I saw that on the Food Channel." She twisted her lips. "Or, maybe, I've still got a bit of the evil in me yet, eh, pet?"

She rolled her eyes and took a seat on one of the wooden stools behind the sidewalk counter. He joined her, giving her an affectionate elbowing while the early evening Fisherman's Wharf visitors bustled by wearing cameras and funny hats.

"I've been meaning to tell you," he said. "That demon came back while you were gone. Came right on into my bedroom like it owned the place."

She was picking seeds out of a careful selection of sliced lemons. "Sounds like the two of you are really getting to know each other."

"Yeah, we do know each other as it turns out - oh, chop that in half if you will." The seller laid out the steaming corpse on the cut table and gave it a good hack with his cleaver, dropping the divisions into two paper bowls with little cups of melted butter and a plastic skewer. "Thanks," he said, passing the second one to Buffy. Spike lifted his kill and took a good chomp out of a thick red leg.

"Ew."

"What's ew?" he asked, crunching. "I thought you liked shellfish?"

"You're supposed to crack the shell open first before you suck out the meat." She picked up the nearby complimentary pliers as evidence.

He dipped his shattered crab leg in the butter with a shrug. "I like the shells - got to keep the teeth sharp somehow."

"Remind me to get you some milkbones."

He grinned. "To each his own. At least I take you out. Now that we've managed to get our clothes back on."

"Cool it," she said, deftly skewering out a sliver of slick white flesh. "I'd like to make it through at least one meal with you this week in a semi-civilized manner. Anyway, so keep with your demon story. How do you know him?"

"He's got a memento of mine stuck in his eye," Spike said, starting on a claw.

She looked interested now. "Your namesake?"

"Yep, a blast from the past. Only, I don't remember this one clearly."

"I thought you said vam - your people had perfect memories."

Spike swallowed a crumbly mouthful and looked at her. "My people? That's a new one."

"Please, no antics in public."

He looked at the crowd hurrying past. "What, you want the good tourists to think we're normal? Like them?"

She squeezed a lemon over her crab. "Yes, I do. Humor me, will you?"

He licked his eye-tooth. "And what do I get for my end of the bargain?"

She tore off a leg and stared him down, folding her red lipsticked lips around the base of it, she sucked hard until the leg shot off its flesh into her mouth.

He nodded vigorously. "All right. I'll behave."

"The demon…?" she pressed around her mouthful.

"Yeah…it's rather odd. I recognize it, but I don't remember, you know…" he glanced at the crab man who was pretending not to listen. Spike picked up his tiny skewer and made a quick jabbing motion.

"I get it. Maybe it wasn't one for the record books. Was it human, before you…went sidewalk sushi on it?"

"I think so. I didn't tend to make that mistake in those days, before I switched teams."

"Has it said anything to you?"

"No, this one doesn't like to chat," he said, stirring up his butter with a chunk of carapace. "You know, at first I thought it was trying to mask its scent from me. But I don't think that's the case anymore. I think it was trying to create a scent, for me to pick up, so I'd follow it. Last time it came back, I didn't smell anything. What sort of demon doesn't have a scent?"

"I don't know," she said. "Smelling's your department. Did we ever come across a non-odiferous species before?"

Spike picked a piece of crab out of his teeth with the end of the plastic skewer. "I don't think so."

"Then I guess we'll just have to rely on my spider-sense. You finished?"

"We going after it? Right now?"

She wiped her lips on a napkin. "Yeah, you had other plans?"

"I thought maybe a movie or a Bay cruise, or…wait, is this exciting you?"

She got up off her stool to toss her shells in the trash. "Huh…?"

He looked her over possessively. "Little beasties aren't the only scent I can pick-up, you know."

She sighed and handed him a napkin. "You've got shell on your chin. Come on, the night's not getting any more demonless."

They swung past the flat for some weaponry before heading up six blocks into Golden Gate Park, the last known residence of Spike's one-eyed mystery man. Spike suggested they start on the west end and take Kennedy east until Buffy felt a nerve twitch. The fog was moving in fast from the Pacific, crossing Ocean Beach and blanketing the treetops and thickening the air in a swath of dewy whiteness.

"You getting anything yet?" he asked. "I can't see a damned thing in this soup."

She turned her head, waving a torch-beam past the misty tree trunks. "Not yet. What's your snout telling you?"

Spike swiped his nose on his sleeve. "That's it's too bloody wet out here to smell the homeless, let alone a scentless demon. We're wasting our time. I don't think it's too late to catch the last showing of _Christmas with the Kranks_, though."

"Why are you so anxious to call this off? Don't you want to get this thing off your back? Or more importantly, out of our bedroom?"

"It's the fog, honestly. I hate it - makes my hair go all curly."

"I think it's cute when it curls."

"You do?"

"Shh…" I think I feel something. She went off down the path that ran past the lakes at a quickening pace, Spike at her heels. In a few minutes they came out of a clump of trees to stop at the edge of the fly-casting pools. Insects hummed over the still water. She looked around, squinting into the haze.

"It's not here, but it's close." She turned, shining her light past the Anglers lodge. The dark outline of a drainage culvert stood out in the fog at the base of a hill. "I think it's in there."

"I think you're right," he agreed, but felt strangely reluctant to approach it. An uneasy feeling had been coming over him in the last hour and it was getting worse.

"You coming?" she asked, halfway to the hole.

He shrugged it off. "Yeah, I'm coming."

They stood side by side as she shined her light into the tunnel. Blackness spread as deep as the beam could go in the diffused fog. "Okay, here's the plan," she said. "You go in and flush it out while I summit the hill and attack it as it comes out the other side."

"Bugger that! I'm not crawling in there. It's dark."

She stared at him like he'd grown a tail. "Since when are you afraid of the dark?"

"Since…who said I was afraid? It's a bit of a tight spot, that's all."

"So you'll have to stoop a little. You'll live."

He shuffled his feet. "Why don't you go in and I'll go over the hill?"

"Because you're the one with the built-in night vision and I have a better chance of kicking its ass. Why are you wimping out on me? You're not frightened, are you?"

"Oh, please. I'll go in the damn hole, if you're going to get whingey about it. It's just…"

"Just what? Spike, I'd like to kill this thing before sunrise."

"I've got a feeling is all."

"What feeling?"

"I'm getting a sod-off vibe. Like it doesn't want to see me right now."

"That has got to be the strangest thing you've ever said to me. You just told me earlier tonight that the last time you encountered this thing it bored you so much you went back to sleep - with it still in the room. Now unless you want me to trade you in for a German shepherd, you'll get in that culvert."

He held up his hands in surrender. "Fine, fine, keep your knickers straight. I'm going in." He bent and took a few steps in. The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up, and not on account of the fog. "Buffy…?"

"Yeah?" her voice was already traveling up the hill.

"Stay in earshot!"

"I will! See you on the other side!"

He shook himself out and kept on into the darkness. It was colder in here. The fog collected in rivulets running down the curved concrete walls, collecting in a thin river down the center that splashed with each step. It wasn't long until the tunnel went completely dark, thick with trapped moisture, leaving Spike without much to go on. He began to whistle, just to hear an echo of how much further he needed to go. It worked for a while, along with running his fingertips on the near wall for guidance, until something stopped him still. He blinked into the nothingness, listening. What he heard nearly made him shake right out of his skin.

"Who's there?" he called out and the sound stopped. "Is it you? Come on out! I've got a nice present for you." He reached into his coat and extracted the short scimitar he'd chosen for extra insurance. "I'm not afraid of you," he lied. Something began to move slowly toward him, dragging itself through the water. It was slow at first and then it sped at an incredible rate, sending a blast of air ahead of it.

"What the…?" Spike turned tail and ran like a fledgling, splashing up water and knocking his head into the low ceiling. The tunnel took a slight turn when he didn't and he stumbled into the wall, falling onto his back. The demon was upon him - without sight or smell he knew it had changed, grown larger. The air went dry. It stood right over him. "Back off!" he yelled and scrambled for the scimitar only to be struck blind by a sudden blast of piercing radiating light, shooting straight into his cranium in an explosion of pain. He screamed and then nothing.

"Spike! Spike! Can you hear me?"

She was dragging him out. His throat was full of blood and his head felt like it had been cracked open and whipped into meringue. He felt grass under him again - they were out of the culvert but he was still in total darkness. "Buffy?" He struggled and coughed up the thickness in his mouth. It ran down his chin and neck.

"Lie still; you're bleeding pretty bad."

"I can't see."

"Your eyes are bleeding, just try to relax."

She took his head in her lap and did her best to wipe off the blood that he could feel running from his nose and dripping from his ears and eyes. "What's happening? What happened to me?"

"Shh, I don't know. Let's ask that question once you're okay." She held a rip of cloth from her blouse over his nose, pinching it shut. He twisted under her and choked again, spitting red everywhere. "Lie still; I'm trying to get it to stop."

He stopped breathing and got as still as he could. The pain was receding as he swallowed great gulps of blood from his nose back into his throat. Soon it stopped. She released his nose and laid her hand on his forehead. "Next time you get a bad feeling, smack me before I let you go in alone."

He swallowed and coughed, able to speak again. "Did you see that light?"

"No, what light?"

"It was blinding, tore right through me, through my eyes. I still can't see."

"You'll have to heal. Whatever got you in there, it got you good. Did you see it at all?"

"No, but I heard it. Scared the shit out of me."

"Did it speak?"

"No, it just sounded like…something."

"Like what?"

"Like a bird."

"You mean like a crow or a finch, or is this one of your weird Brit-isms?"

"Neither. Fluttering. And then it came at me with the high-beams. God, you didn't see it?"

She stroked his blood-wet hair to calm him. "No, I didn't see anything or hear anything, just your scream. I've never heard you scream like that. I ran though the other way but only found you."

"So it's gone."

"It is. But I don't think we can count on it staying that way. Are you sure this was the same demon?"

"I am; it's used light before as a defense - but not like this. It's like it had taken another form. It was hiding from me. It didn't want me to see it like that."

"I don't know what to make of this, but we've got to stop it. It could be becoming more powerful and you only have so much blood in your head to spare. Can you stand? I want to get you home as soon as possible."

"Yeah, I think I can manage."

She broke into the Anglers bathroom so they could wipe down his face and neck with paper towels. He was blind and weak but he could walk. She put him on the couch when they got back and finished cleaning him up with a warm towel, then she dug her way into the kitchen disaster to find him some blood.

"Here we go, mug at 6 o'clock," she said, holding his head up and guiding the rim to his lips. He drank it down in a series of gulps and lay back.

"Thanks for warming it," he said in her general direction. His eyes were improving, but he still couldn't see much, everything was a muddy gray haze. "You didn't have to."

"It's okay," she said. "I'm used to feeding vampires. You in particular. Can I get you another cup?"

"In a minute. How do my eyes look?" He blinked at her rough gray shape.

"Ghastly."

"Great, and here I've been told they were one of my better features."

She traced his eyebrows lightly with her fingertips. "They are nice, when you can see the blue in them. But I'm kind of into your mouth right now."

"I'd noticed," he said, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. "Thank you for coming back, for choosing me - if I haven't said it yet with the talking part of my mouth. It means a lot. And not just for the obvious reasons. It's been a while since I've had somebody to watch my back. I didn't think I had enemies anymore."

"We'll always have enemies, it seems. I'm just amazed this one was able to take you out like it did. I've never seen you scared. I didn't think you could be scared, after everything you've been through. Hell not the least of it."

"Oh, there's plenty of scenarios that can still terrify me. Most of them feature you prominently."

"I told you once before, you don't need to be afraid," she said, laying her cheek against his shoulder. "And it wasn't much of a decision choosing to come back here. Wait…that didn't come out right. What I mean is, I didn't have anything keeping me down south anymore. No one's really needed me for a long time, except you. It feels good."

"I still think you could have done better."

"No. Not really. Regular guys, they get boring. I guess I've always felt that way. It's hard trying to be with someone when you can't really let yourself out - holding back all the time, pretending not to have the kind of past I've had. I don't have to think or worry about any of that with you. We don't keep those kinds of secrets."

"I suppose not," he said, letting the kindness of her voice draw him toward sleep.

She bent and kissed him softly. "Get some rest. I should try to do something about this mess while you're down for the count. At least get the bed put together."

"Good luck with that. And Buffy…?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I trouble you for that second cup?"

"No trouble," she said, picking up the mug. "Just…try not to sound like a Folgers commercial. It's a little disturbing."

He closed his useless eyes. "You got it, honey."

TBC


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

Over the next 24 hours the color began to switch back on in Spike's optical broadcast. The rough shapes were there, but the focus was still in need of vertical and horizontal adjustment. The healing of his eyes would have gone faster, he felt, if his head didn't keep making contact with the furniture and walls as he attempted to navigate the rats' maze of Buffy's fickle home decorating decisions. From what he could hear, the wardrobe had clocked more mileage around the two rooms of his flat (correction, _their_ flat) than his deceased DeSoto.

"I think I liked the bookcase better up next to the window," said the still-fetching blonde and peach blob-person at the wall to his left. "What about you?"

He was lying on her couch where it was reasonably safe, nursing a pair of sore shins. "Sod this for a lark; I'm staying put until you and Christopher Lowell give it a rest."

Spike figured most homes only got settled when the muscle of the operation gave out - usually the male of the species. In this case, the female was more than capable of lugging a dining table around on her back 'til the Second Coming. He'd need a seeing-eye dog before long.

"Oh, stop griping. I've made you a path to the refrigerator and back. If you need anything else, I'll shout you there."

Her guidance was of little use, his stumblings were often punctuated by an ill-timed shout of, "Coat rack!" and a loud crash to the floor. He had to come out of this hysterical blindness soon or it meant kissing the arse of his $2500 security deposit goodbye.

"You could be a saint and guide me to my smokes, wherever the bloody hell they've got off to."

"I hid them. No more smoking in the house. I'm not letting you get icky ashtray stink in my upholstery."

He sat up, incensed. "Hang on one minute! Don't even think about depriving me of my God-given right to smoke. I don't love you that much. So be a peach and fetch the vampire his fags."

Her blur crossed the room and stopped at the end of the sofa. "I'll dig them up when you can see well enough to climb out to the fire escape and puff away without running head-first into our friend gravity. I'm not scraping Spike-hamburger out of the alley."

He fell back, grumbling. He hated being a kept boy. "I've fallen from far greater heights, you know. Be worth it, too." He'd survived most of the week without them, seeing as his oral fixation was being otherwise entertained. Now he was just crabby.

"You know what I just realized," she said. "You don't drink anymore."

"No, I don't."

"What's up with that? I thought you and Jack Daniels were to the death."

He shrugged. "Don't know. Haven't reached for a bottle since the whole Hell incident. But if I have to go much longer without the sweet taste of tobacco in my lungs, I will!"

By evening he was still firmly planted on the cushions, still smokeless and even crabbier when she came out of the bedroom, a long heavy something slung over her shoulder, possibly of the battle axe variety.

"Okay, there's blood in the top door rack of the fridge, cups by the microwave. The TV remote is on the table at the far end of the couch. If you want to play the stereo, use the lower half of the buttons, the radio tuner's at the bottom. Keep the volume reasonable so your neighbors don't crash the door down again."

He pinched his eyes, but still couldn't get a clear look at her features. "What's with the nanny bit? Where are you off to?"

"I'm going to go kill that one-eyed creep."

That got him off the couch. "Buffy, are you off your nut? That shitbox means business. You're not going after it alone. I don't fancy the thought of the both of us playing grope and seek at the same time…or…maybe I do. But it's no matter, because I'm not letting you out that door."

"Spike, this demon has been having its way with you for a while now; there's no telling what it might try next. It's adopted this light-ray thingy because it knows you're not built for day-use. It hasn't had time to think up an attack strategy for me yet, and I'm not going to give it the opportunity. I'm taking it down tonight, no argument."

He braved the open flooring and felt his way to the door, backing himself against it. Her blurry self took the shape of obstinacy as she stopped before him, axe in hand. "No chance, love. My eyes will clear in another day or so and then we'll both go empty out the weapons chest and get Medieval on it together. This is my fight. It wants me. I started this cock-up a century ago - I'll finish it."

Her voice was all business. "Out of my way."

"You gonna pick a fight with a crip?" he asked, bouncing on his heels.

"Don't tempt me. I'm the slayer; this is my job. Nobody picks on my boyfriend and gets to walk away with a head still on its shoulders."

"It's flattering, pet, really, but get over yourself. You're not the solo act anymore. The beast can wait."

The axe blade bobbed at her side. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? And when did you start making the calls? I'm in charge here. I say what gets dead, when. Move."

He braced himself against the wood, arms out to either jamb. "Over my undead body."

"I don't need this. I can take care of myself. Get out of the doorway, or I'll…"

"Or you'll what? Put a fist through my skull? I think that's called domestic violence in this town. I might have to file a complaint."

Her shoulders hunched. The axe shifted. She was coiling for a strike.

He laughed at her. "You don't get it, honey. The bloody war's over. The monsters are fled. Your army's packed it in, general. It's done. Put down the martyrdom and pick up a clue - the only one here that's going to get dead tonight is you if you don't stop with the sodding crusade already."

Her free arm swung up, but he caught it, fast. "You gonna knock me down over this? I'm the one who loves you, baby," he said softly, as he reached out to trace the curve of her fuzzy pinkish cheek. With slow deliberation, he slipped his fingers into her hair and dragged his thumb down the line of her neck. Her pulse started and fluttered under his touch. Even half-blind he could still work a bit of the Bela Lugosi mojo on her. It'd worked the same for Dru. When it came down to skin and touch, the two of them weren't much different.

"Stop it," she whispered.

"Make me," he said, tracing her lower lip with his thumb, eliciting a tremble.

"Spike…"

He pulled her to him and ran his nose along her hairline, inhaling. Her tension surrendered as he brought his lips down to her ear. "You don't belong to the world anymore, pet. You belong to me."

The axe fell to the floor with a crack of broken wood grain as her arms grappled around him and her lips struck his in a furious kiss. _Well, _he thought, as his tongue took on the assault,_ this might be worth pissing away the security deposit after all_.

It took three days all told for Spike to fully regain his vision, and then all he wanted to with it was to spend his time watching Buffy as she pattered around their flat, unpacking the very dregs of the boxes and sweeping away the settling dust. She was remarkably efficient at it, arranging and stowing what had just a few days ago resembled the path an f5 tornado. He wasn't invited much to her nesting ritual - must be a girl thing, he figured. Leaving her to it was probably for the best, as his head felt entirely too fogged with happiness to be of much organizational use.

"What?" she asked suspiciously as she rearranged the bookshelf paperbacks for the third time - hers and his - now stacked together tallest to shortest and stopped with a fernpot. "What are you staring at?"

"Nothing," he said with a shy smile. "Just you." And he pretended to glance away just so he could catch the answering smile playing at her lips.

This was their home now - strange and new and full of hope and glassware. It was hard to see through all the shoe cozies and soy yogurt where he fit in exactly, when every spare corner and fixture had been conquered by her presence - right down to the brand of laundry detergent. But as far as Spike was concerned, he only really needed to fit in one place. When he couldn't stand to sit idly by and watch her folding slacks another moment, he'd come up behind her and wrap her up in his arms, kissing her madly and carry her off to the nearest soft landing, or hard landing as the case may be, and they'd lose each other in the slick steamy current of desire that always seemed to run just under their skin. Sometimes, after the grunting and moaning subsided, they'd put themselves back together and make another late-night run to Target for shelf spacers, or share a pizza and a soapy hot shower (which often lead to more shagging and tile polishing). Other times they'd just lie in a pile of quivering limbs, knowing the effort necessary to wash up and redress would only prove futile - their seemingly endless hunger for each other was certain to rear its hydra-like head within the hour unless sleep took them first.

Spike was awake now after a long lazy afternoon nap together. He was lying quietly watching the girl sleeping next to him in this big soft new bed of pillows and comforters and all other manner of white fringey linen. She was curled up to him, a soft breathing presence that made him feel like kittens inside. Her arm was warm on his belly, her fingers laced in his in a relaxed reassuring grip. They'd never done this before, not really. They'd never let themselves hold on to each other this close for this long. It tore him up along the scars of his old wounds to know she had never wanted him to feel her vulnerability before, to allow him to reach out and comfort that frightened little girl deep down inside the cast-iron slayer. It was no mystery to Spike why there had never been enough room for him to slip in and take hold until now. The Sunnydale Buffy he once knew took on responsibility for everyone she loved - her friends, Joyce, Dawn - and now they were gone - they'd outgrown her, abandoned her, moved on. It seemed to him she'd been floating lost on her own for years, aching for something to hold onto, to weigh her down again. And so in sleep, she clung to him. He nuzzled her hair, running lazy fingers through it. She smelled of sleep and the day's couplings. _Take me on, love. Make this our mausoleum. Let me be your burden and beside you I will lie in peace._

The light outside the drawn shades was turning deep orange, signaling the end of his daily confinement. They'd spent it together more or less naked, testing the box spring and headboard for structural soundness. The 21st century modular construct proved to be surprisingly resilient. The only disadvantage to forgoing their previous practice of vertical wall-supported alignment was the fact the bed posts tended to rattle the flooring and consequently the nerves of the biddy downstairs. She'd taken to thumping her ceiling every few hours with a broom handle. It was only a matter of time before Spike knew he'd have to go dig up more bribery funds for the landlord. Perhaps he could buy out the flat below for a few months, just for the privacy, just so they could properly finish getting reacquainted - if 'finish' was ever a word they'd use. He chuckled despite himself at the thought of the old hag hauling her oxygen tank to another complex, cursing him all the way.

Buffy stirred and her fingers left his as she stretched her arms up over her head, eyes still closed, breasts soft and lined with linen folds. Her mind was still caught in some pleasant half-dream as she yawned. He ran wiggling fingers up the underside of her arm to her wrist, tickling hello. She twitched, smiled and swatted at his head, missing badly and giving him opportunity to slip over and cover all her delicious warmth with his needy skin. Her thighs were limp and open and it only took a small wriggle and nudge to enter her. He'd been hard for an hour, just lying with her, watching her fluttering eyelids, exciting himself with the thought waking her in this fashion when the time seemed ripe.

"Mmm," she said, draping her drowsy arms over his back.

"Morning, love…or evening, rather," he mumbled as he took a lax nipple into his mouth, coaxing it from slumber into a stiffened nub. She rewarded him with a luxurious sigh he felt all the way to his balls. Six or seven hours was too long to be separated. His hips jerked harder, remembering how he'd lifted her onto the dresser-top earlier that day, pulled at her scanties and pounded her wetness until her carefully arranged perfume bottles began to jump and roll to the floor. He chuckled, remembering how she slapped at his chest, shouting at him to catch them, along with their replacement cost.

"What's funny?" she asked, drawing her legs up to let him in even deeper_. Uh-oh, caught._ _You know you've got it bad, mate, when you're fantasizing about shagging Buffy while you're shagging Buffy._

"Me, you, us - I dunno, it's crazy how much I want this."

"Not crazy," she assured him in soft sighs while she tried to wake up her tongue - this seemed most readily accomplished by licking and nibbling his neck.

"Ahh, yeah, do that…so good, pet…mmm." He slipped his hands under her shoulders to grasp and hold her even closer, the rhythm of his hips quickening with his rapidly building tension.

"Go ahead and come if you want," she said as she took her warm lips to his ear.

He shook his nose against the softness of her cheek. _No._

"Shh…don't be silly. I can feel you…you need it. Just let go." Her hands slid low to grip the tense muscles of his arse, encouraging. "Take me… please."

Her words drove him to it, the want in her voice to be a willing vessel for his pleasure. His mountainous love and desire for her, pent up and hardened from long years of unrequited yearning, had only just begun to melt and slough off. She knew this about him, could feel it in his bones, and although it went unspoken, he took her offer freely, riding her in sharp deep thrusts aimed at nothing more than bringing his orgasm up hard and thick through his cock while all the nerves were still fresh and tender from recent sleep.

"God, Buffy…!" He shook and strained into her as he came, giving her one last trio of thrusts at each burst, so good it brought tears to his eyes. He raised his head, unashamed, breathing through the receding tremors. "Love you, baby…love you so much."

She smiled through sleepy eyes and pulled him back to her. He collapsed into her sheltering arms as she came fully awake. Her fingers kneaded small circles down his back as he unwound muscle by muscle, melting against her, drifting back into a drowsy state of half awareness.

"How are your eyes now?" she asked, fingers working their heavenly way over his backside.

"Mmm?" He was just dropping off. "Eyes? Fine, I guess."

"I want to get out tonight," she said, rubbing his neck, smoothing away the last of the tension. God, he never wanted to leave this bed. "I want to find that thing and kill it."

"I know," he said against her neck, trying to hide his disappointment. He knew she'd been counting the hours and days until he healed - she'd given him that much. It was no use denying her any longer. The girl had to hunt to live. "Just give me another minute."

"Just a minute," she said firmly, and kissed his ear.

And that's how it went for a while, they'd shag and sleep the daylight away and at night, they'd hunt. Weapons in hand, they trolled the Park and sewers searching for a trace of Spike's demon. None came, so instead they turned their efforts toward providing the unbeknownst City of San Francisco with a free demon immigration inspection service. Nine times out of ten the sewer rats they caught were either card-carriers, lost-card-carriers with poor excuses which often led to lost heads, or actually sewer rats. Big ones. Demon enough to behead, anyway. It kept Buffy on her toes for a week or so, bright-eyed and excited, chatty late into the growing morning as they lounged together on her sofa, hair still damp from the shower, eating from the same carton of mint chip ice cream, telly on, exuberant over their latest hard-won finds. It was so good to see her like this, alive and excited, all for pretending to be who she once was and Spike was more than pleased to accompany her in this masquerade for as long as it could last.

Soon enough, the residential demons filed a harassment complaint with the Council and Giles sent a terse letter to Spike with his monthly bankroll ordering him to knock it off. No mention of Buffy in the three-line note, perhaps she hadn't yet informed Rupert of their living arrangement, or perhaps the old ponce was just conveniently ignoring it. Either way, Spike made no mention of it to Buffy.

So when they ran out of demons to chase, they began to chase each other. Spike woke late one afternoon to find a sticky note posted to his forehead.

"Come find me. - B"

He sat up and sniffed the air. She was gone, some hours gone and he'd not woken, either. This fact disturbed him as much as her dare excited him. He got up and searched the flat, trapped until sundown, looking for clues. Some candles were missing, a dress was off its hanger, and the weapons trunk was left slightly ajar. He sorted through the paraphernalia: one pair of wrist clasps were missing as well as a seven-foot length of aluminum chain. Interesting

He showered and dressed, filled up on blood, pocketed his smokes and lighter, and paced the living room floor, leather flapping at his heels, waiting for the light to fade behind the blinds. He singed the tips of his fingers peeking through them a few times, though he knew damn well sundown wasn't until 7:35 this evening. Sometimes being a vampire just plain sucked. At 7:20 he crawled out the kitchen window to leap over the fire escape railing to the rooftop of the shorter neighboring building. Standing in the long shadows he raised his nose to the light wind. He took several long breaths, gauging carefully the subtle difference between the latent Buffyscent that clung ubiquitously to his hair and clothes to that of her subtle traveling scent that carried itself scattered on the moving air. Wherever she had gone, it was far. For now he'd have to wait for the sun to dip altogether and take his hunt to the streets.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

It hadn't rained in the city for over a month, so the sidewalks held the scent of everyone and everything that had passed by in recent weeks: Herds of old ladies with carts, Pomeranians to Labradors, bike messengers, the postman, that hot dog stand guy, and of course, Buffy. Her trail led him straight down Ortega to 19th where it abruptly cut off at the bus stop.

_Clever girl._

If he guessed her departure time correctly, as being within two hours prior to his waking, then that indicated three possible MUNI lines: Downtown, South SF, or Uptown toward the Golden Gate. Spike trotted under the lights of the intersection and jogged up an alley until he caught the end of a fire escape ladder. From there he clambered up to the roof to close his eyes and inhale again.

The wind was coming in from the Pacific, a steady stream of damp offshore fog and seafoam. Within the millions of individual city-dwelling human scents hers was faint, but unmistakable. His Buffy was somewhere to the north and that meant the Golden Gate line. He took a clean jump from the rooftop to the alley and caught the next northbound bus at 19th. He took a pocketknife punctured vinyl seat in the blindspot of the driver's rearview and smacked the window down an inch to sniff. Some old smelly man with a cane behind him began to tap on the glass, complaining about the perfectly warm air. Spike turned a cool blue eye on him. "I'm twice your years, gramps. Don't hear me whinging over a bloody open window." _Dust me before I ever act that old._

Spike pulled the stop cord when they rumbled past the Presidio. He could still catch her scent through the window crack, growing steadily stronger, but he wanted to pace the bridge first before heading out of town to be certain. If he missed his guess it meant a long wait for a ride back and Spike was not the kind of man to leave a lady waiting. He got out at Fort Point and jogged up the hilly walk and onto the painted red steel span of the Golden Gate Bridge. The fog was still holding back, thick and white a few miles offshore, likely to head inland as the evening drew on. He knew he'd have to move fast if he was going to catch her before the moisture dulled his senses.

The pedestrian walkway was busy tonight. Spike wanted to run it full out in a barely perceived flicker of black and white, but there was too much risk of slamming into an unsuspecting couple, out for a weaving romantic stroll over the passing shiplights and dark waters of the Bay below. A quarter moon was up, silhouetting the high dark cliffs of the Headlands on the opposite shore. Behind him, San Francisco lit up like a jewel-encrusted breastplate - packed rows of homes and towering skyscrapers each casting off their own unique geometry and color. He'd admired it many times, this view. But tonight his mind was embedded in other precious things, secret treasures which when held close and cherished lit up with a light of their own.

At mid-span he paused, stood under the sloping cables and let the wind speak to him. The Bay channel was at its most deep and swift here, all scents funneled through it, the air current sliced in two by the horizontal roadbed. He turned his head to the north and breathed it all in. Closer still. Close enough to begin to scent her mood as well as her form. The scent he caught stirred his cold blood and made him rise, thrilled to pieces over this little game. He smiled and trotted on toward the black hump of the cliffs.

The Marin Headlands at night were a hell of a hike even for a vampire. Only a single one-way road dared the dark dizzy slopes, skirting the shear rockfall below. The steep hills between were choked with pine, oak, eucalyptus and thick tangles of wild sage, making an inland journey a tiresome hurdle. Spike wanted to turn up in one relatively handsome piece, so he sat at the roadside halfway up the first grade and stuck out a thumb. Not the quickest solution. Souled-up or no, most humans will think twice before stopping for a bleached blond in a long black leather jacket looking every part the bad ass he no longer was. That is until a revved up '63 beige Ford pickup screeched to a halt in the turnout with a gaggle of teen surfers and gear bouncing in the bed.

"Hey, bro! Need a ride?"

Spike stood up and crushed his cigarette under a boot. "If you wouldn't mind." The surfers scuttled their boards around to make room for him to hop on in and ride the wheel hub. Four boys in the back, two in the cab, all swimming trunked and t-shirted, they looked him over curiously as the old pickup shifted sluggishly and started up the winding asphalt.

"Your bike break down or something?" one of them asked.

"Nope," Spike said, drawing out a fresh cigarette and lighting it behind the flap of his coat. "On foot tonight. Smoke?" A couple of the boys took him up on the offer, passing Spike's pack and lighter between them.

"Didja walk all the way up from the valley?"

"Came up from cityside - Sunset, actually."

"Shit, that's a bitch of a hike!"

"Took the bus part-way. What're you blokes up to? Bit late for surf, innit?"

"Naw, we're catching the midnight tide. There's supposed to be some choice bumps tonight. What are you out for? Band practice?"

Spike grinned. "Gotta date with my girl, lads."

"Is she lost? 'Cause there ain't shit up here but waves and rocks."

Spike shrugged and took a drag off his cigarette, flicking sparks that sailed out over the edge of the cliff like orange fireflies. "Don't know quite where she's meeting me yet. I'm sniffing her out."

"Sniffing?"

"Yeah…what? You never scented a bird before? They like that, you know, being hunted down and all," he said with a knowing wink. "Girls go for a little animal attraction."

The little guy riding shotgun looked at him strangely through the open back window. "You can _smell_ her?" he giggled. "That must be one gnarly skank, dude."

Spike laughed. "Hardly, I just have a particularly keen attachment to her. Can hear her heart beating right inside her most times, the sweet rush of blood in her veins." The boys took turns staring at each other and at him, not entirely sure how much of this was bollocks - sometimes being a vampire really _didn't_ suck.

"Any of you fellas ever been in love?" Spike said to further his point. "And I don't mean that nancy puppy-love shite. I mean great love, the love you read about in thick yellowed Russian novels. Love that turns you all inside out, takes you over in one fell swoop. Bites at your heart and burns your soul night and day until it's all you know, all you care or think about. Until all you dream about is her and how desperately you want to crawl all into her skin, fill her up with your ache 'til you can't bloody breathe for the joy of being hers? Or _his_, as the case may be, this being San Francisco and all." The little guy nodded at that.

"So whatcha gonna do when you do sniff her out? Up here, wherever?"

Spike smirked. "What do you think?"

A couple of the guys snickered to themselves. Virgins, most-like.

The kid sitting back against the tailgate wasn't laughing. "So this great love thing, if you're the expert…what do you do when it gets away from you?"

"Here we go…" a couple of the teens taunted in lack of sympathy. "Veronica, Verooonica. How could she dump me for that ass-wipe? Oh, she's such a bitch! You got worked, man…totally shralped."

"No laughing matter, that," Spike said seriously, crushing his cigarette out on the rim of the bed. He gave the boy's troubles some thought. "I know that pain, believe me. Not much you can do if she's done, if anything. Best thing is to try and do nothing, I reckon. Everything I did to hold on to her only served to prove how unworthy I was of her love in the first place."

"Are we talking about the same girl, here?" Tailgate boy asked. "The one you're meeting tonight?"

"We are."

"So you did get her back. How'd you do it?"

Spike gave a melancholy snort. "I changed. Moved on. Forgot about her, almost. Tried to anyway. Then one day, years later, she just came back. Really not sure how I managed that, but she's mine again and I'm hers and be damned the rest. People change; it's all you can hope for. Maybe someday you'll just wake up together."

The kid didn't seem cheered in the least by this. Experience was the only chance a man had against the pull of his heart. That, and a soul when it was willing. At least the kid didn't have to go to Africa and swallow beetles for that. The pickup's gears ground as they slowly made the summit, crossing over onto the backbone of the hilltop, heading northward across the flat. The road diverted here and Spike stood up, catching the changing wind.

"Hold up!" he called to the driver and jumped down into the low sea-swept grasses as the vehicle braked and the taillights lit Spike up in red. He bent to the grass, pulling some of it up out of the dirt to run under his nose. He licked the tip of the blades. This was his turn-off alright. The boys were standing up in the back of the pickup, staring at him in astonishment.

"He wasn't kidding. Uh, dude, that's kind of gross."

Spike waved them off as he headed for the oak-lined gravel road that lead toward the western cliffside. The lorry didn't move, just idled as he made for the trees. Spike shifted into game face and gave one last glance behind him. "Thanks for the lift! Stay out of trouble, now!"

"Shit! Shit! Drive!" Tires kicked up dirt and screeched into the night. "Did you see that?"

"Yeah, that was a fucking werewolf, man! We picked up a fucking werewolf!"

Spike sighed as he tromped through the tree roots. Wasn't even a full moon tonight, and he was certainly a far cry from hairy. There really were too few demons left in this world. Depressing, really. Still, the night was young, especially for a vampire.

At the world's end stood the crumbling concrete and iron barred monolith of Battery Mendell - a long-forgotten WWI outpost that once housed a pair of 12-inch caliber rifles on hulking carriages aimed at the vast Pacific below. The weapons were removed and sold for scrap during the Second World War and the coastal fortification was welded shut, locked behind chain link fences and overgrown with wild scrub.

Spike crunched through the oaks toward the Battery's heavy shadow as the sleeping Indian maiden of Mt. Tamalpias threatened the sparse light of the sinking moon. The fortress' vacant watchtowers stood guarding the sea while the gulls blew up the red cliffs to nest in their empty sockets. He cleared the forest, vaulted the fence and climbed the chipped gray stairways to arrive at the platform between the two massive gun housings, their amphitheaters laid bare now save for old rusty rivers trailing from the severed iron mountings. Here he paused to take in the air.

She was here, there was no doubt. Only question was where.

Spike walked the outer walls, kicking up concrete dust as he peered into the rusted iron windows and creaking doors that blocked curious human entry to the warren of dead rooms and crawlways tunneling deep into the cliffs. Spike had come here once years ago to hunt demon for entertainment, but was soon frustrated by the seemingly endless twists and turns of the old carcass going some four levels deep. The walls of the hidden rooms were scratched and burned in demonic symbols decades old and painted over with gang tags of the modern era. He stopped at a broken iron-rung door on the second level and slipped in. The moonlight failed quickly and he shifted to demon eyes to better guide his way. Humans had come this way recently, reeking of sweat, beer, incense and herbs. Wax drippings and broken bottles littered the floors as he wound his way in, following turns and dropping down stairways, going deeper, while thick twisted cables and bent rebar reached out of the crumbling walls and ceiling. His nose told him Buffy had come in this way, too, and the others must have followed sometime after - a gang of restless young adults out for a little conjuring and recreational drug use in the dark.

It wasn't too long before he saw their candlelight flickering up ahead at the end of a long hall pocked with doorways. These had likely been officers' quarters from the tangled remains of cot springs cast off in the corners, long lost to rust and rot. Spike paused to listen. In addition to the wind-driven moans and clangs of old iron, he heard five heartbeats, young folk, some ticking faster than others. One girl was speaking, reciting some silly chant in very poor Latin. She was making a good effort to call the dead despite herself and Spike hated to disappoint.

In a half second he was through their sanctum's doorway, standing in the center of their nervous circle. "Evening, children. Any of you lot seen a lady come by this way?"

Blankets and beer went flying along with a chorus of ear-rattling screams as the room cleared of teenagers, blowing past his coat tails, shouting very foul things and stumbling over each other to get the hell out as if the Devil himself was on their tail.

_Well, that was quick. Not to mention rude. I was polite, wasn't I? _Spike licked his teeth, still fangy. Not the best way to introduce oneself in mixed company. They'd made a terrible mess and oh, hell, part of the room was on fire. A candle had fallen over and lit up a stack of printed spell pages off He tossed an abandoned blanket over the flames and stomped it out. _Only vampires can prevent Battery fires._

Spike held his breath as he waited for the smoke to fade up through a vent in the ceiling, another matching vent was drilled into the floor, circulating the air from below. From its hidden orifice came the warm lush scent of woman. He bent over its rusted grid and sniffed. _Buffy_. He put his ear to the slit and down deep he could hear the faint shuffle of bare feet. He cupped his mouth and roared down into it. The feet sped up and skittered away - Buffy's trot if he'd ever heard it. How she was navigating the darkness down there he couldn't guess, but he was resolved to find out.

He took the stairs down to the labyrinth of corridors on the deepest level, leaping in and out of cluttered rooms rank with shallow pools where the groundwater had dripped through cracks in the walls. The flooring was slick in places, oozing with black mold. It stank, but he braved it, deftly navigating the decay, searching for vents to sniff, getting ever closer to his target. On occasion his demon eyes caught a flicker of light, a pale green beacon flashing up through the open holes and slits that ran just below the basement he now prowled. She had light with her, that was how she'd kept ahead of him, just one turn further, one concrete membrane lower. Her cunning thrilled him, her living scent drove him into a state of acute instinctive lust, no longer an eager bloke on a date, but a finely honed creature of the night, chasing down quarry in the filth and forgotten hollows of this dark place. He was a vampire again, blood running smooth and pure in his dead veins, hardening his flesh, lost in the rush of it, his mind a fine slate of red. Then the rooms gave way to an open circular space, a dry cistern with a high ceiling and at its center, a wide round mouth, fastened up and bolted with iron. He went to it where the rim glowed softly green and looked down between his boots. Buffy knelt in the bottom of the dry well hole, some 15 feet down, arms around her knees, head down, acquiescent.

Spike smiled. "Poor lost girl, fallen down the well. Not a good place to hide, love. No telling what nasty thing might come take a bite out of you."

She unfolded and tilted her head back with dark eyes. Her graceful neck was lit by a small green jewel, hung in gold and glowing softly at the hollow of her throat - a charmed trinket. Her long white dress, smudged with filth, was torn at the shoulder, the neckline hanging open and jagged to the swell of her breast, the nipple peaked and rosy just under the thin cloth. He could smell her, all of her - more naked than he'd thought. No soap, perfume, or other scent-masking powders or creams had touched her skin today. She was bare for him, face clean of makeup, hair un-brushed and wild - so unlike her, his prim and perfect miss. He wanted to eat her alive.

He clicked his tongue at her. "Aren't you a gorgeous sight? Did you miss your wash this morning? Must have for you to get out so quick without me catching you. That wasn't very nice, leaving me alone, pacing the floor, gnashing my teeth, itching to come out and play." He straddled the iron grate that locked out the opening, bent and inhaled, long and slow. "You smell of last night, baby. You've still got some of me in you, rubbed into your skin. Love that, how you let me mark you. Anything less then human knows to keep off, this sweet bitch belongs to Spike."

She kept still, watching him warily with her dark round eyes.

"How shall we have it, tonight? There's your mouth for starters, most definitely…want to watch your pretty cheeks hollow for me. Then I'll have a go or two at your tight little pussy…maybe over me, or maybe under… on your knees, hands gripped in the rubble, breaking rocks…or do you have some dirty little secret you'd like to confess? Like when you've got your fingers slid all down there, feeling around when you think I'm sleeping, done for, laid flat by you and you just can't stop…can't help yourself. Where does your desire go, love?"

Her eyes flashed up at him, hard and furious.

His prick twitched as he laughed and knelt over the grating on all fours, leering back. "What haven't I done for you yet that makes your pretty cheeks flush with shame just for thinkin' it?"

The light bobbed at her throat as she swallowed. She could defy him all she wanted with her eyes, but she was pooling fresh for him, even now. His nostrils flared.

"Touched a nerve, didn't I?"

"You won't be touching anything if you can't catch me," she whispered through her teeth and dove off into the drain at her right.

"Hey…!" He pulled at the grating, it groaned and stayed fast. He stood, stomping at the welds, his poundings echoing down into the hole, but a century of war iron and rust held fast.

"Buffy! Bloody…_fuck_!"


	9. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

There was no way down, no way in. She had planned for that, sealed off whatever crevice she had crawled through initially so he couldn't locate it no matter how thoroughly he cased the basement. She was channeling below him, beside him, then somehow she'd gone up, over his head. Her shifting limbs left echoes of sound he could trace with pictures in his mind - depth, distance, direction - a wormhole map. She was moving up and behind him, a tantalizing scratching between the hard layers of wall. Spike took the broken stairwell up a level, leaping over the yawning gap, swinging from a tangle of dropped cable. At the landing a corridor stretched back into the cliff, straight and barren. Her echoes came from in there and he ran down its length, through a narrow door and into a small square room lit up with candles. His eyes balked and swam in the sudden light. He morphed to human and the contrasts became bearable - he was surrounded by concrete, steel and high barred windows. A prison cell.

The screech of sliding metal made him jump and whirl about, the door was closing behind him. He dove for it and his head came up hard against the riveted plates as it shut. A bolt slammed into place. He shook off his collision and cursed, his hands scrabbling over the flat blue-gray steel. _What in bleeding hell…?_

"Buffy!" he yelled, pounding the door. "That better bloody well be you!"

A narrow plate slid back in the center of the prison door. Her eyes appeared. "You were expecting Harmony?"

He got to his knees, both relieved and enraged. "Buffy…what the fuck, girl? Let me outta here!"

"Not yet," she said, her voice calm and cool as the steel under his palms. "I've just caught you. Be a shame to let you go so soon."

Spike leaned in close to the serving slit, sniffing. Her qwim was a little hotpot of potpourri - heat, sweat, day-old musk, mingled with veneers of the new. His mouth grew wet. Fuck, he wanted at it, to lick her clean, layer by layer. "Thought I was supposed to be catching _you_."

"You thought wrong," she sneered back. "You played right into my trap. Like a mouse to cheese."

"You got that right, sweetheart. Want a taste of you - how am I gonna get it?"

Through the opening he could see her tongue snake out to wet her lips. "You could bribe me."

Spike chuckled low in his belly. "You my gaoler now, pet? I reckon you've been watching some of my vintage prison-bitch flicks, haven't you? That what the chains were for? The ones you nicked from our toychest?"

She smiled, her teeth catching the candlelight in the dark. "You mean these?" she asked, running a clinking shower of aluminum past the opening. "Backup, if you get out of hand."

"And what do I get if I'm good, baby?"

"Good behavior? From you?" The lips curled. "That would be a disappointment. Why don't you show me just how bad you really are. Serve it up for me, prison-style."

Spike eyed his bulging crotch, then the serving slit. The idea both titillated him and made him squirm. She didn't have any other toys from their collection on hand, did she? Didn't matter, much, his cock wasn't being terribly shy about the prospect. He _had_ asked for her mouth. Right now that was all of her he could see.

He stood, unzipped, took a step forward and presented. The metal door was smooth and cold against his balls, a sharp temperature drop from the warm tantalizing hands greeting his prick - unnervingly lost to his own range of vision. He pressed his face and hands against the old door, unable to see her, surrendering to the feel of a living woman dropping hot kisses down the length of him.

Although the door was strong, it wasn't more than an inch thick, leaving plenty of overhang for her art. Pressed in close, she swallowed him from head to near-base, nice and slow, deep generous suckings, with interludes of soft kisses and caresses that made his legs tremble and his hips rock his nuts over the steel rivets - the pain making the pleasure all the more thrilling.

"That's my bad boy," she cooed, tasting him in long lavish licks as he groaned. "So hard, so cool and yummy." She kissed the dewy tip of him, her tongue slipping under the foreskin to graze the tender flesh. He yipped and jerked in reflex, too much, but pressed in again a moment later as she took him down between firm sweet lips. He wouldn't be 'cool' for long, the heat of her mouth was pumping warmth into him one engorged vein at a time. He rocked his forehead across the metal, moaning in delight. Their chase had set him up good, got his six-shooter cocked and loaded for a good long fuck - but the first bullet out of the gun was always the rawest, the most intense. He craved a good suck. He'd wanted to watch her do it, watch her lips round out and her throat work, watch her eyes when he tightened up to shoot, feel her hand squeezing and rolling his balls, just as he did against the door, making him cry out all manner of gratifying expletives as the floodgates fell. But this was different, darker, more secretive, he had to imagine her on her knees in the filth, her flimsy dress hitched up over her hips, a dirty hand sneaking down through her glistening curls, seeking to fire off her own rockets.

_Fuck_, that did it. He rammed himself into the door, feeling the hot rush gathering despite the pancake flattening of his balls, promising to boil up nice and vent off…but she was gone, laughing, ghosting around the walls of his cage, the chain rattling behind her.

He slammed his forehead into the door and pulled himself back in, gripping his cock against the stabbing ache. Every instinct told him to finish it, wank off the worst of it and then give her a what-for. But his ego wouldn't hear of it - sadistic sod that he was. He half-tucked up and whirled about his cell, looking for an advantage. The windows were high and barred on the front steel wall, but the sides were concrete and the back was bedrock, chiseled rough behind the rusted sink and missing toilet. Spike put his hand on a crumbling patch of concrete, it fell apart under his firm scratches. He backed up and took a running kick at it. The impact shook his bones, but a sizable hunk of material crumbled away. He went for it a few more times, hearing her shout not to bring the fucking walls down, this was a state landmark! but she'd left him little choice.

"It's what you get for inciting a sodding demon to vandalism! I'll bite and claw my way through rock to get at you if I have to!" Another leap and a two-foot wide hunk of masonry fell away, exposing the rebar beneath. Spike spun about and before really thinking on it much, kicked over the sink in a groan and pop of old copper piping. He lifted the heavy basin overhead and hurled it at the failing wall with such force it came right down along with a good portion of the ceiling. Buffy gave a shout and they both covered their heads until the sediment settled. Looking up, Spike could see up to the floor above. Dust rained down, but the rest held strong. Buffy stood in her dress, covered in a fine layer of concrete dust, her chains hanging down over her bare shoulders, one end clipped to her wrist, the other dangling. She looked like Andromeda newly freed from her rock. The Kraken needed to rectify that.

Spike flew at the rebar, arm extended and caught her chain, reeling her in at a gap in the rockpile, threading the slack through the bars and clamping the second binding to his own wrist.

"Spike! Shit!" She struggled to get away, but found herself bound by the hand and waist in a double loop of chain. He pulled her in, the links rattling along the exposed bars as he wrapped the end of the bindings around his wrist, tightening her up until she was backed up against the rebar. She could move, she just couldn't escape. Her sweet arse was pressed against a foot-wide gap in the bars - right where he wanted her.

He stepped up and tore her dress in half at her waist, pushing the material up to expose her gleaming sex. "Bend over, baby," he growled as he sank to his knees in the rubble. _What is it with us and derelict buildings?_ "Gonna give you a catbath if you hold real still." He tugged her chains like a charioteer at the reigns. "Do it."

She grunted and bent near in two, letting her dusty hair fall over her face in golden tangles. Her thighs quivered as he ran his nose up the backs of her knees, cool fingers brushed her thighs, just breathing her. She wanted care and he was the man to see to it. She moaned as he began to lap at her dirty soft skin, licking the spreading sheen of her arousal from the inner contours of her strong narrow thighs, working his way up to the secretive skin between, so soft and moist, just at the door of her sex, lipping the fur around it, drinking in her flavors, but not insinuating his tongue just _there, _not yet.

"Spike…oh, that feels…so, so…"

Her voice sent a bolt of heat straight up his cock, still peeking out over his half-done fly. "Shh, easy baby. No words. No talk. Just feel. Feel me cleaning you, making you nice and pretty for my cock. Don't know rightly where this hole's been today."

She hissed and twisted against the chains, trying to work a fist free to deck him. He chuckled. "So easy to rile you, love. Should have smelled it, years ago, under all that shampoo and perfume how dirty you really were."

"I'm not dirty. Not like you."

"Oh, you think not?" he said between long wet licks along the crease of her bottom. She pressed herself up against the bars, wanting more. "Then tell me why you like this so bloody much." His tongue plunged, slipping through her folds, dragging the moisture upwards over her puckered little bum. She gasped as he flickered his tongue over it, tasting the small delicate circle as sweetly as he would her bellybutton. Sometimes, when he ate her, she'd allow him to taste her here and other times, when he was buried to his balls in her, behind her, he'd manage a thumbtip, just dipping in and out as she came noisily around his prick. No prick this time. No pussy. She'd have to deal with herself and her little anal fetish for once and for all. He gave her another good wet lick and dipped his middle finger into her, thrusting and twisting it gently around the tight ring of muscle.

"Spike, shit! Oh, fuck…fuck …fuck me if you're gonna do that - dammit!"

"Hurts a little, don't it? Always does. That's what makes it good."

She tried to flip her head about so she could scold him with her eyes while her bottom did its damnedest to stay right where it wanted to be with a nice long cool finger plunged into it. "How would you know…? Oh, crap, don't answer that. I don't want to know. Really…don't want to…oooh!"

"How 'bout I show you instead?" he grinned and stood, taking himself in hand and pushing his cockhead between her folds, not entering her, just lubing it up, much to her intense frustrated delight. "I ever tell you what it was like for me that night you were kissing me in the Bronze, after all that bollocks over who's who and say hello to these nits Randy and Joan? You remember that, pet?"

She nodded, reaching back to grip the rebar, jerking her hips, trying to trick him into her.

He rocked just to and fro, keeping her center off-target, pleasing only himself. "You got me so wound up, so hot for you, I couldn't hardly stand on my own legs. All my blood gone down to my cock. Felt like iron in there - all heat and want and unbelief that I was really there at all, kissing you over and over, your tongue on mine. Was hardly able to keep my hands gentle on you, smelling you dripping under your skirt, denying yourself. I'd never wanted a fuck so bad in my life. My mind was dizzy with it, all the ways I wanted you, hundreds of ways, the thoughts tugging at my poor forgotten prick you kept your lovely round hips just out of reach of. I couldn't take it any more, all this pretending I wasn't a man and you weren't a woman, just mouths sore with lying, so I moved, pushed in with my hip just once to brush you where you smoldered, thinkin' if I touch her there, then she'll know, she'll realize it's happening and take me down and make me a happy man. One brush's all I got and you were slapping me, hard and mean. 'What are you doing?' you asked me. 'What am I doing? You stupid bint, I'm kissing you!' I said and I could have died twice for the look on your face. How much I disgusted you, when only a moment before…"

"Spike, what are you trying to prove? Are you getting back at me now? Fine time to…_nnngh_!" He thrust in her deep, in her pussy, all the bleeding way and she sobbed out her breath, clutching the bars, wanting, waiting for more. But all he gave her in way of friction was the finger buried in her arse.

"No, I'm not done speaking. And you're gonna listen to me if you want your pudding, got it?" She groaned but was otherwise silent.

"You left me there like that. Just walked out like I never existed - not a man, not even a monster, like I was nothing but empty shadow. You could turn it on and off like that then. Cruel and beautiful you were to me and God, how I fucking loved you, even then - broken and aching. I went out back, hard and furious and put my hand to the brick wall and tried to work it all out the only way I had for me but it wouldn't come. You'd done me up good, made me hate myself so bloody much I couldn't stand the sight of my own fist tossing my own bloody miserable self off to the storm drain - so I thought of you. Thought of you much like this - filthy, chains around you, bars too, a prison maybe and you were my captive. You were so desperate for me, you bent and showed your slick swollen pussy to me, begged me to fuck it, through the bars, good and hard, make you come, make you swoon," he said as he slowly drew himself out, despite her whimpers. "But that's not what got me off finally. No, what did it was thinkin' about denying you, making you suffer and beg, leaving you there, for hours, days - I don't know. Just knowing what it was like to want something more than life or blood and to be so close to it after waiting for so long and _still_ not get it…"

He slid himself along her cleft as he said these words, pressing his cockhead up to her ass, rubbing it around, dipping two fingers in now, just easing the way…

"You wanna get me off now, Buffy?"

"Yes, I do…oh! Please."

"Then beg me, beg me to do it."

"Oh, fuck…Spike…please, fuck me… please."

"Won't fuck your pussy. Not now."

"I know…I know, you fucking shithead! Just do it!"

She was loosening now, nearly there.

"I loved you then, when you were terrible, with every inch of me. Everything I had to give was yours. Think now what its like for me, what it means to me to know I have you, right here under my hands, arse against these bars, cunt all wet and desperate. Think about what that does to me - how much I sodding adore you for letting me…_wanting_ me to have you this way."

"Spike! Now!"

He pressed until she gave way, slid in, and claimed the very last of her as tears sprung up with each tender thrust into the unspeakable warmth she gave up for him between cold iron bars. The climax he'd been denied, just the first of many he knew he would claim tonight, rushed up hot and raw flowing out of him as he shuddered into her tight, tight hole, shaking them both down with mingled cries of want and release, falling on failing knees into the broken chains and relics of abandoned history.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

The fog had come in. Spike could smell its thick presence seeping in though the wall cracks as he writhed. He could smell the damp sinking over the raw rich fragrance of her body - her unwashed hair and skin, the animal musk of her cleft, parted and filled with his cock. The dew settled on her warmth, bringing shivers and bumps to her bare arms and breasts as he pressed his smooth chest to her, his arms low around her hips, hitching her up, giving her a tilt to better drive himself in. She winced and moaned, growing wetter around the intrusive length of him, though she was surely sore by now. Nothing to help that - lust was a battle they fought just as fiercely as the scarce creatures that went bump in the night. They'd have long scared them off by now, the creatures, if the children who'd left behind the blankets and candles they'd appropriated on the disheveled floor of the abandoned séance room had better luck tonight. The faded spell markings glowed along the walls above their bare twinning bodies, the forgotten language dulling in the guttering candlelight.

They'd lain here for hours - rolling, fucking, moaning, claiming each other in turn with bites and bruises and primal shouts. He'd sniffed her, licked her, sucked her from neck to knee, his face returning to her folds, collecting their mingled fluids, priming her for another go. Limb and muscle were worked to the edge of exhaustion, and yet they still strove to connect, to keep the hard burn smoldering, flaring up again and again like matchsticks drawn across a rough surface. She sobbed his name, her small nails digging into the raked flesh of his back. He pressed his panting mouth to her, nipping her chin, a fist twisting in her hair as if to find a hand-hold to claw his way in even deeper, lose himself more heavily in her heat. They'd find it soon, that perfect release, locked together in a hot thick rush surfacing from what should be, after these long wild hours, a well-drilled field.

"Spike, lover… do it…get it in there, right up in there…oh, God…"

Her mouth closed over his and she kissed him hungrily, like a plea for water or blood—as if his demon were bound and bred to feed her sucking mouths with dead seed. His cock stroked into her, metering out that rhythmic pain-mixed pleasure she delighted in so much. Lost here in this fortress, they could push their desire to the brink of agony and revel in it. Her thighs tightened around him and her cunt clamped down as she dragged herself once more toward the brink.

"Need you…want you so fucking much…do it, do it, make me come…oh, please…" her words thinned into a sweet wail. She was close, straining, thrusting her hips to meet his, his balls sloppy with her juice, needing more, just a little bit more. He slid his hand over her hip to feel the hot meat of their joined bodies, tender tissues swollen by over-indulgence as much as need. She'd heal fast, fortunately. And him, well, after a hot shower and a half gallon of cold blood down his aching throat and he'd sleep like the dead for days. He gathered the slickness off her low gorging lips and spread it to her hot little bunghole. After their initial fuck he'd given it a rest, a chance to acclimate to the shock of being filled and stretched. She'd be sore here, too, but something needed to be done soon to get her off or his cock was going to shatter to dust. He'd had her everywhere tonight: Against the iron bars, chained together until the wall had given way to let him tumble out. Then he took her with her ass in the bowl of the cracked and teetering basin he'd flung through the wall - her ankles locked behind his head, her pretty wet qwim a warm hollow in the darkness. They'd changed floors for better air—building a bed of the blankets, lighting more candles and just letting one fuck roll into another with a shift of limbs and interludes of pleased kisses and raptured sighs. And that still hadn't been enough. For her.

"Jesus! Oh, God…yes…_fuck_!" Two fingers in the bum without much prelude sent her right to the coda—though she'd deny it later, how she couldn't possibly love a dirty little lowdown probe so goddamned much. She jerked and trembled around him and went boneless in his arms, melting along with her bliss into the tattered wool beneath them. He collapsed on her, his dick still in her, reasonably hard, but he was too shagged out to mount the effort to finish it. They lay in silence until she caught her breath and rolled him off her to take mercy on his last stand and bring him off in her mouth.

Spike let the last of himself ooze from his prick and down her throat with a surrendering groan. She licked at his rubbery flesh, smiling like it'd been a feast rather than a meek trickle. "Bloody hell, girl, I'm tapped."

She grinned and stretched out next to him, hips just brushing, as they watched the green light of her jewel throw the shadows of their depleted forms against the far wall. "I didn't think there was a bottom to your cask."

"Neither did I," he said, lungs aching for a cigarette, or twelve. Fuck, their clothes were abandoned a few floors down still. No way he could manage to sit up right now, let alone stand and trudge around looking for a scrunched pack of Reds. Better just to pass out starkers and hope the State Park Service was too bloody cheap to hire a morning watch. "I guess there's a first time for everything. I hope you're pleased - couldn't manage another horn for you, if you dangled your jack and danny in my face."

She smiled and sat up, a wicked dare in her eyes. _God, please no._ She knelt and pressed her breasts to his chest, shimming up him. She clamped her thighs over his arms and splayed her lips for him - her rosy red nub was a shimmering ruby in the candlelight. "Your mouth still works," she said and he knew that victory smoke was a long cry off.

They took the bus back. She rode beside him, her eyes closed, nestled in his arms and wrapped up in his long coat. He stroked her tangled hair and kissed her smudged cheek. He loved holding her, more than anything - close, where he could sense all the lovely stories her body, blood and breath had to tell. She was naked under the dusty leather and smelled of deep satisfaction. He'd carry her home now, right up to the door of the shower - get the water hot and soap all the dirt and spunk from her perfect radiant skin, then rinse her clean and towel her up for a long sleep together in their bed.

He was happier now than he could ever remember being in his whole long sorry existence. It was true what he'd told the surfers - he had no idea how he'd managed it—to earn this rare treasure, to hold her close and cherish her. Even the driver could sense this as his tired eyes glanced once more into the rearview to see her pretty head resting against the vacancy of her spectral lover. He wouldn't ask. He'd probably seen stranger oddities of a night.

Spike felt Buffy had earned him, too, in some ways—taking the chance and courage to come back to him over the years to rebuild the fallen foundations of their former affair. Even so, he knew tonight wasn't just about pleasing his demon. She needed the rush and crash for herself, a place to come undone, to be free and true to her nature. It wouldn't last; he knew it. Her efforts to exhume her slayer past were beginning to fray at the edges. His soul knew it, too, thrumming with a pulsing wariness under his resurgent joy. Great love may burn, but it also consumes—they'd both learned that—until there was nothing left. What she needed was something more, more than him. And he had an idea how he might go about giving that to her.

Buffy came home the following night just as he was stepping out of the shower. Two large dusty trash bags sat in the middle of the living room floor.

"What's this," she asked, toeing a plastic mound. "And where have you been all night?"

He took a scrub at his hair, then wrapped the towel around his waist. "They're for you."

"Garbage? Thanks."

"It's not rubbish, just some of it was buried under it for a while. Took bloody forever to dig it all up."

She untied the red cinch on one of the sacks and peered in. She raised her head and stared at him. "It's money."

"Yeah, a lot of it. More than I thought." He plopped down on the couch and began picking the dirt out from under his nails.

"You'd buried it all? Spike, they had invented the banking system back in the 1880s, hadn't they?"

"Do I look like a fellow who keeps banker's hours?"

"You didn't...uh..."

"Nick it? No...I earned it, in a manner of speaking."

"You don't work."

He chuckled. "If you think I've gone back to mugging people in the street, I'll go take my loot and drop it down a manhole for some lucky sewer dweller to find. I saved the bloody lot of it—been at it for a few years; it piled up. It's yours now; I don't want it."

She reached a hand in to lift up a crumbly wad. It smelled a little funny and she put it back and wiped her hand. "Spike, I can't even begin to understand this unless you're honest with me."

"Honest?"

"How did you get it? When you lived in Sunnydale you barely had two shirts on your back...and a beta player."

"A man can get up in the world, you know."

"Spike..."

He sighed. "Fine. It's Giles. He thinks keeping my pockets lined will prevent the good English watchdog effort from any untoward embarrassments."

"He sent you this much?"

"No, I've held a job or two, and had some...financial opportunities come my way."

"Gambling money? Is that what this is?"

"Hey, it's legal. Thank white-guilt Indian casino votes for that!"

She sighed and sat down next to the offering. "I can't take this."

"Why not?"

"Because...I don't know. It's not fair."

"Take it, Buffy. Buy yourself a nice chipper shop like you wanted. Make bloody tea sandwiches for the working class. You'll be good at it. I know it."

She looked wistful. "Being a slayer was the only thing I was ever really good at."

"Yeah, well killing people was the only thing I was ever really good at. Look where it got me."

She looked seriously at him. "Do you think we can do this, Spike?"

"It's what you came here for, wasn't it? Originally?"

"It was, yeah."

"Then I think, Buffy, that's why this is going to work. I have to believe that."

"So do I."

"Then take the sodding money, all right?"

She grinned at the bag and gave it a pat. "Think this stuff is washable? I'd hate to walk into the bank smelling like a grave robber."

"I'll put laundry detergent on the grocery list."

Five days later they were standing in the dark narrow kitchen of an old soup shop in the north Mission. The flooring was cracked and the walls smelled of good ol' San Franciscan mold.

"So this is what thirty grand gets you nowadays, eh?" he said, easily finding and flipping the light switch over her searching hands. The remaining fluorescents hummed and struggled to life. Little black shapes skittered under the tarnished steel grill and make table. "Charming. You could almost eat off the floor, or at least the rats do."

Buffy gleamed with pride and threw herself into his arms, kissing him. "Oh, sweetie, it's perfect!" she said, hugging his waist and tugging him into the seating area. There was room beyond the counter for a half dozen tables and twice as many chairs—a little hole-in-the-wall lunch stop on the way to the South of Market business district. "I want to put a big palm there, right by the door. And here, over the counter, I want one of those hand-drawn chalk menus with the light pine framing. The tiles need replaced and the oven's a lost cause, but the rest…I never thought…" her eyes sparkled with excitement. "A little bleach and elbow grease and it'll be beautiful! It is beautiful! You're beautiful!" He caught her up as she leapt on him again for another chorus of kisses. He grinned under her tender enthusiasm, held her small body to his where her heart beat swiftly.

"It's yours, love. For real this time. Something of your own." _Something that will make you stay—with me._

She looked into his eyes. "It's something for us both," she said and he smiled.

That there was some work to be done on the place was an understatement. But Buffy knew her trade and was soon on her cell to old contacts in the biz she'd known, she said, from before when she worked down south: suppliers, bakers, plumbers... The rest was up to them. Instead of trudging through the gullies and drains with swords and crossbows they now spent their nights wielding mops and paint rollers from dusk till dawn and sometimes beyond, rolling the shades down in the front room to keep the sun out.

She was light-hearted and sweet, pausing often in their work to plaster him with warm kisses and caresses—sometimes degrading into a hot hard fuck on the make table. One day she surprised him with a plain brown package.

"What's this?" he asked, putting down the spackle knife and taking the long heavy box from her, pulling on the twine bow.

She looked amused. "Something every handyman needs." Inside was a loaded leather tool belt and a rubber mallet sledgehammer. He was vaguely horrified, but hid it well under a bemused smile. She bounced. "Come on, try it on!"

He obliged her, sliding the leather belt around his dusty jeans and looping it tight. It looked like a Home Depot hula skirt.

"Ooh! Very manly," she praised, turning him about.

"If you put me in this thing to say it makes my bum look like Xander's, I'll know what the sledgehammer's for."

She giggled. "The sledge is for the rear storage room. We're expanding it." She grinned, handing him the implement and pushing his tooled hips toward the back. "And we both know you're especially talented at taking down walls."

After the wall came down, they took a night off to celebrate their one-month anniversary. One month from her move-in date, that is. It seemed to Spike like a year had gone by, but time was more variable to him, less simple to divide and measure. It made him dizzy sometimes to reach back through the years to their first true year of acquaintance and remember the vampire who used to rule the Sunnydale underground with a crazed paramour and a hell-bent grandsire set on bringing down the human world he was now preparing to feed. This was a stranger life than he had ever known, Spike thought, as they walked along the pier where they had shared their first uneasy date in San Francisco together. Buffy was tucked at his side, cheerful and full of baked clams.

She was chatty tonight, excited about the shop, her plans for it. He was quiet - an odd feeling niggling at the back of his mind - a sense of unreality he took for his inability to accept good fortune when it turned right up and smacked him in the melon. _Unforgiven_ - his soul still whispered. And yet he clearly was. She held his hand in hers, let passers-by see they were beloved, though the mainstay of their days were private and spent in the exclusive company of one another. This was so different from the Buffy who once was surrounded by people whom she loved and needed. Now there was just him. He should feel grateful for their absence - somehow though, her isolation made him sad.

"You know I've been meaning to ask you," he said as they walked along the wood planks over the shifting waters. "Why didn't you ring-up Harris to come rescue the shop from all the cockroaches and paisley wallpaper? He'd have done a fair better job in half the time."

She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I wanted to do this all myself and with you, silent partner."

"Does he know?" he asked. "Do any of them know you're here?"

"Of course they do. The big empty apartment would have been a dead giveaway by now."

"But they don't know _why_ you're here."

She turned her head toward the water. "They do. They understand."

He stepped ahead of her and stopped them both. "You're lying to me," he said. "Why?"

"I'm not…lying, completely."

"You needn't lie to me, not about this. I don't care if they know or not. All I care about is that I'm in love with you and by some undeserved miracle, you're here, with me. I rather like having you all to myself. I just thought it was odd they never rang."

She looked contrite and crossed her arms, leaning back into the rail. "I told them I was traveling, overseas, for a few months. I think they bought it. I just wanted…some time. I wanted to see if I, if _we_, could make this work."

He considered that. "And Dawn?"

"She knows. Everything. I gave her your address and she has my cell. Funny thing is, she always was a cheerleader for your team."

"Aside from when she promised to set me alight if I ever hurt you again. I won't. I couldn't. She knows that, right?"

"She does. She trusts you, more than the rest ever could. I can't say I blame them. I was never able to explain you very well to them, and when I did, it was over. I don't want to lie to you, but I need you to understand this isn't easy for me."

"I know that. That's why I don't ask you for anything. I love you so much…it's everything to me just to be near you, to see you, to talk to you, to kiss you, to make you smile, to make you moan…hmm, I guess I do want everything. I can't help it. It's what you do to me by just…being. There isn't anything I wouldn't give you, to make you happy. You have my heart. I'd give you my soul, too, if I could. Truth is I never cared for it much; it's a bloody nuisance most times, except when I'm holding you, and then it's wonderful."

She touched his face. "I believe you," she said as she moved into his arms. He held her, kissed her head as they watched the night ferry pass under the bridge. "How does that soul feel now?" she asked.

"Much better," he said against her hair. "Better still if you stay. Will you stay with me, Buffy?"

She hugged him tighter. "Of course, silly. I'd planned on it."

"Good, because this time around you'd have to stake me before I could ever let you go."


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

The next eve they were back at the shop, taking out the tile flooring with picks and shovels. Buffy came out of the office and crossed the torn-up floor, eyes down, drawing the loose ends of her ponytail over her ears. She stopped just behind him, leaning against the front counter, both stunned and pensive, if there were words for her expression.

Spike stopped his floor-shoveling and dusted off his hands on the back of his jeans, approaching her. "What's wrong, love?"

She worried her lip a moment. "It's Dawn. She just called."

"She did? I didn't hear your cell…" Spike felt an icicle of fear stab his chest as Buffy's worried eyes met his. "Is she all right?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. Her fiancée, Mark, he left her yesterday afternoon."

"Left her, you mean..?"

Buffy nodded her head and sighed. "Left her as in _gone_, just walked out. He pinned a note to their message board. He took three pairs of pants and a handful of t-shirts and their car, I guess, and just…went."

"That bloody prick."

"That's what I said…except, I said 'asshole fuck-face pig.' It's terrible; he left her with all the bills and the rent she can't afford on their apartment now and, hell, she has to move, right away, pack up all his shit by herself and _ugh_…" Buffy stared at the stained ceiling in frustration and concern. "She's falling apart, Spike. She needs me."

"Then you should go. Right away, get a flight out… I dunno, at first light. What the hell time is it in Vermont now, anyway?"

Buffy looked at the mess surrounding them. "I can't leave now, the gas guy's coming tomorrow, bright and early, and the asbestos inspector is Thursday and the new oven is being delivered sometime between noon and whenever on Friday, even though I know damn well the delivery guys just hold up at the donut shop half the day anyway…I can't…"

He touched her arm. "Yes you can, Buffy. And you should. That's what sisters do for each other. Niblet needs you right now. I'll stay and see to things. You know I will."

She shook her head. "Spike, that's very sweet, but you can't…"

"Yeah, I can. Just leave me a list and I'll keep it right here in my pocket and…"

"I didn't mean that, I mean…daylight. This is daylight work. People deliver ovens during waking hours. I don't want you getting crispy."

Spike touched her chin. "So I'll doss down in the office and have them bring it in the back. Buffy, I can handle this. Trust me."

Her large bluish eyes regarded him sincerely. "I do."

"Then it's settled. We'll raid the petty cash drawer for airfare and you're on your way."

She sighed again and pushed at the broken tiles with her toe. "Thank you," she said slowly. "I mean it."

Spike felt a grin tugging at his mouth. "I know."

He didn't begin to feel the uneasy panic until she started to pack. Spike sat on the end of their bed, fingers laced to keep from fidgeting, as she Tetrised the last of her carefully laid out clothing, hair brushes, shoes and other girly supplies into an enormous black suitcase. Why women needed to take half their lives with them on holiday, he'd never know. She was only supposed to be gone four days at best.

"So when you get there, you give little bit a big growly vampire hug from me, you hear? And relay my standing offer to have some old demon pals of mine from New York come up to sniff out the louse and show him the consequences of ditching a Summers girl."

Buffy grinned, but kept steady on with the packing. She didn't want to leave, either, he could feel that and not just for the shop. That was real nice, but still, Spike had no idea how he was going to get on without her, even for a short while. A part of him was terrified Dawn in her grief and anger might convince Buffy that all men were louses in need of a good extermination and before you could say, 'Bob's your uncle,' the two of them would be riding motorcycles bareback with Willow in a parade. Better just to play right into it.

"And while you're all heavy into the man-hating with her, you might want to get in a few good digs on me - what a deadbeat jerk I am to live with. Meet her punch for punch."

That got an amused eyebrow. "Care to enlighten me?"

"Uh…you can tell her I leave my knickers all over the bathroom floor; I'm a terrible slob about it."

"You don't wear any underwear."

"Right. Well, if I did, I'd just toss it, 'cause that's what deadbeat jerks do, right?"

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "I could tell her about all the crusty blood residue you leave in my saucepans."

Spike pointed a finger at her. "Ah-hah, that's a good one. And I have cold feet and I snore, probably."

Buffy smiled - a beautiful thing to behold. He knew he could get a smile, just one to hold him through the rest of the week. "You're right on the cold feet, buddy, but snoring, nuh-uh; you don't breathe when you're asleep."

"I don't?"

"Not when you're really out. That's how I know when you're faking it. That humanity thing you cling to, it gives you right up. Of course, I could always go with the nosehair problem," she said, zipping her nearly full suitcase and lifting it easily off the bed.

_Nosehair problem?_ he wondered, wriggling his nose as he followed her into the living room to wait for her cab. Well, he couldn't investigate that properly _now_. Sometimes lacking a reflection really had its disadvantages. A cab honked outside. Early, dammit.

"Buffy…"

She turned, her golden hair flipping over her pale shoulder all Meg Ryan and slow-motion like. God, how he loved her. "Please come back."

She frowned a little, eyeing him, while he shuffled in place, feeling every bit the fool. So much for controlling the fidgets. She dropped her bag with an elephantine thump and came close to take his face in her hands. She stroked his cheeks, eyes looking right through him, right through to the frightened soul quivering somewhere deep inside.

"Kiss me, you deadbeat jerk," she whispered and he gathered her close and did just that.

Over the next few nights Spike got to know the regular late-night patrons of Fu Hung's Liquor and Deli quite well as their parking lot hosted the nearest payphone to their flat. The first night he rang her cell right at sundown, Pacific time, ostensibly to make sure her flight had arrived safely.

"I'm here. I'm good. Dawn's picking up the rental. Oh, here she is, gotta go! Bye!"

The next night, after a fun-filled day of oven deliveries and tile shucking, he got her voicemail.

_Hi! You've reached Buffy Summers. I'm probably out slaying something right now, but if you leave a message…_

"Hey, baby, just rang to hear your voice, pathetic sod I am. I guess I'll make do with the recording. No…wait, bloody hell, call me back if you get a chance. I'm at the payphone on the corner. 415-567-8895. Love you. Oh, and this is Spike…but, you've probably already figured that out. Fuck. Bye!"

Spike leaned against the brick retaining wall outside Fu Hung's while he waited out the hours for her return call - cursing under his breath between cigarette puffs how much he really really hated the telephone system, especially the cellular telephone system. Elaborately penned letters had been the long-distance voice of love in his day. But then the booth began to ring and he happily tossed the butt and ran for the phone, catching it on the second ring. It was an PacBell advertisement offering great rates on business-to-business calls. Bloody fuck. Back to the wall.

Another hour or two and it rang again. He had to shoulder aside an old drunk to get at it this time, but it was her.

"Hey, sweetie, sorry about not calling you back sooner. Dawn's…well, she's kind of a mess. I'm just trying my best to be there for her, you know?"

"I know, Buffy. It's all right. Not like I've got anything better to do. This parking lot suits me just fine for evening entertainment. Any luck on figuring out why arse-head buggered out so quick?"

"Nope. Nothing. Everything was fine as far as she could figure. I guess he just had something building up. Wait," she said, lowering her voice. Spike heard Buffy speaking away from the phone for a moment and then she was back. "I really need to go. I'll call you tomorrow night. Nine o'clock your time, okay? Dawn should be asleep by then."

"Sure love, I'll be here. Buffy, I…"

"Gotta go! Sorry! 'night!"

Click.

"…miss you."

The next night Spike bought a fresh pack of ciggies and got comfortable on his wall with the Sunday Chronicle, greeting the after-six crowd with a few nods as they went in and out for cheap Korean beer, lotto tickets and steamed bok choy with sticky rice. Spike was chopsticking a carton of it himself, hitched up on the wall when the phone rang. Bloody hell. He hopped down and picked it up, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"Hullo?"

"Spike, it's me. Sorry I'm late calling; we were out. How's the parking lot?"

"Chipper. Same oil stains, different night. How's Dawn?"

Buffy giggled. "Really drunk. And a little bruised, she took down a vamp in the alley as we were waiting for a cab. My baby sister's sure grown up. She's asleep now. And you wouldn't believe this guy in the club - he was like all over us, I guess he has a thing for sisters because…"

"Buffy…?"

"Huh?"

"Are you pissed?"

"Uh, no…oh wait, yeah, if you mean drunk, you silly Brit. We had a really really good time. Mmm. Wish you were here."

Spike sighed. Buffy was such a flirt when she was sloshed, not that it happened very often. "Don't go much for the alcohol anymore, love."

"Oh right, forgot. All straight and narrow. Gotcha. God, I'm so horny right now. Are you horny?"

Spike thunked his forehead on the phone case. Brilliant. "Baby, you know I'd take care of you if I could. Are you at home, love? Dawn's home?"

"Yep, lying here in my hide-a-bed, just rolling around."

"Then do me a favor, sweetheart, and put your pretty hand down your knickers for me."

"I will not! You're trying to get me to have phone sex with you. I'm not that dense even when I'm drunk. I'm on to you, buster."

"Are you doin' it?" Daft bint, he could hear her breathing.

"Have been since I played back your message ten minutes ago. Crap, your voice turns me on."

"Figured as much. What say I talk dirty to you for the next few and we work on your little problem together, all right?"

"Will-do, captain."

"You could start by giving me a visual, love. What are you wearing?"

"Pppbbt! What am I wearing? That's so lame."

"Then what about I tell you what I'd like you to be wearing?"

"Sure, whatever."

Spike set his bok choy down on the sticky pavement and maneuvered the folding door shut behind him - Fu's customers didn't need to get to know him _this_ well. "See, I've got a fondness for that soft pink off-the-shoulder number you like to wear with the hip huggers, 'cept I'd like to see you in just the knit with maybe those frilly v-shaped lacey deals with the pink roses."

"Pink is your thing, huh?"

"Sure. Reminds me of you. Certain soft petaly parts of you."

"And those would be…?"

"Come on, you know I think about pussy every thirty seconds."

"Xander's got you beat on that one."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind, we were talking about my pink parts."

"Your lovely tasty pink parts. I've a mind to give 'em a nice friendly lick or two."

"With a cold vampire tongue? No thanks. It's chilly here."

"Oi, the tongue _gets_ warm if you kiss it properly first!"

"Are we having phone sex, or a phone fight?"

"Sorry, just miss you."

"Mmm, I miss your nice big vampire penis."

"Yeah? You want to share that thought with me?" The drunk made a stumbling lurch against the side of the booth, smiling toothlessly at him, or several of hims. Spike flipped him off and turned his back.

"…I want it, up in me. God, I want it right now. You on me, pushing me into the pillows, filling me up. Do it now, sweetie. Give it to me."

Spike leaned back against the glass and slipped a hand in his jeans pocket, shifting his package to a less constrictive position. He gave them a reassuring pat_. Later, fellas - we'll have a nice little shower party, I promise._ Slayer still knew how to torture him. "Don't think even vampire anatomy can make up a 3000 mile deficit, love. Gotta use your fingers for me. Will you do that? Or did you pack a trinket to go? Packed damned near everything else."

"No robotics, I'm flying solo tonight. Gotta go with my noggin. Mmm that guy in the club was awful hot..."

"Charming, love. Can we get ahead to where _I'm_ taking care of what ails you?"

"Mmm, yes, wanna hear it?"

Spike heard sheets rustle and then something slippery. Slippery and, bloody hell, could a vampire hear flesh throbbing over a cellphone?

"You like?"

"You know I do, slutty bitch. Take yourself - jam some fingers up that thirsty hole and let me hear _that_."

She did, sounded like seals mating in shallow water. If he'd been a living man, the booth windows would be steaming.

"You get that?"

"Fuck…"

"That's the idea. Hmm, stupid fingers are too short. Wait…_shit_. No good, only you can reach it."

"That's right, baby - fingers, tongue, I'd make it so good for you. Bring you up nice and slow and then right when you can't take it any more, I'd fuck you hard with my fingers, the ones with the silver rings on 'em you love so much, and suck your tiny nut 'til you howl for me." That got a lovely sound Spike was certain he couldn't spell, followed by a lot of breathing.

"Buffy? Love? You there?"

"Mmmm, yes. Feeling better. Much, mmm…"

"Good, just don't get too relaxed. I want you all voracious and bossy when you get back to me. Plan on pinning you down for a good long while. Buffy…? You there? Sweetheart…?"

Dial tone………..

"Love you, dammit. Come home."

Spike flicked on all the lights when he returned to the flat. Less lonely that way. He had his nice vigorous soapy shower and retired to the couch and telly for a sip of blood before bed. It was 2 or 3 in the morning now, swing shift. That's the schedule he kept, half in the day, half in the night, even when she was gone. Four days, three nights now and he'd not slept well through any of them. Strange long dreams had settled into his subconscious of late. Memories spanning the century were popping up in random order: Drusilla and Darla walking the Themes at midnight, blood on their lips …his mother when she was younger, taller, holding his small hand, taking him to fair…the fires of China…Angelus holding a dagger to his throat…Harmony carrying shopping bags full of shoes…Buffy weeping quietly at her back porch…Giles pressing him up against the Magic Shop display case: 'We are not your friends'…the sky exploding over Glory's tower as the world mended and his heart came apart…crossing the Golden Gate for the first time at night, hearing the foghorns moan…the black seas of Africa, stretching out into the night…Buffy coming out of the lights at the _Rage_…they made no sense, had no story to tell, just the feelings behind them, rocking him, shaking him. He wished she was home. He was tired; he should try to sleep.

He turned off the lights and went to their bedroom. Missing her voice and touch were one thing, but her scent was what he always cherished the most, they way it enveloped him like her body did when they made love. Her scent lingered with him the longest, but even now it was fading, casting pale echoes around the room. He went to her clothes dresser and opened it up, hoping to find that pink fuzzy thing for a good nuzzle. He hadn't seen her pack it. It wasn't in the first two drawers so he crouched to open the bottom one. Sweaters: there it was. He gathered it in his fingers to bring to his nose when the corner of something purple caught his eye. A flat box with a lid. Curious, he pulled it out and sat crosslegged on the floor to open it.

The box didn't hold much, just a single sheet of folded paper. He lifted it and a photograph fell out. He reached for it and flipped it over. The image took him aback. It was of him, in Sunnydale, taken outside the Bronze. He stood at a fair distance in profile, lighting a cigarette, his blond head cocked to the yellow flicker of his lighter cupped in his hands. He was evil then. He could tell from the stance. He didn't remember it being taken or by who. Why did she have it? Why had she kept it? His hand shook as he reached for the folded paper it had fallen from. It was a pencil drawing, one of Angel's, of Joyce sleeping. It made him sad. Buffy had lost so many things in the fall of Sunnydale, these must have been the odd remnants. He tucked the photograph of himself back inside and tucked the box and its contents into the sweaters. He shut her drawer and stood, looking around. He felt cold, out of touch with the things in this room, Buffy's things. He needed her to stay grounded as much as she needed him to give her purpose. He undressed and slipped into bed, clicking off the last of the lights. He pulled the blankets over him, tucked the pink sweater under his chin and just breathed.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve**

His blood was racing. In the wild screech of the subway Spike thought he might hear his own heart thudding for all the dizzy thrill he was feeling. The smooth hardness of his fangs filled his mouth as he stared down at his prey pinned between his thighs. Black leather and skin lay between, hot and ready. His mouth was wet, anticipating the bite, the crunch, the flood of sweet blood. Her neck was broken and her skin exposed. With a possessive growl he bent to take her, to sink his teeth into her fine pink flesh under a burst of golden hair.

_Buffy!_

Spike struggled to rise from under a flood of deep sleep. Consciousness came on slowly. Limbs began to animate and he reached out for the soft fall of hair that lay on the pillow beside him. Eyes closed tight, he drew the silk to his nose to breathe in the truth and begin to shake away the nightmare.

No scent.

Spike opened his eyes. The demon lay beside him in the bed. The end of its long black hair was curled around his fingers. The slitted light from the streetside window made the figure plain. Pale skin, long nose, missing eye. A sleeping evil.

Spike let the demon hair go as he slowly sat up and slid out of the bed. On his feet, Spike backed away, watching the sleeping figure lying with its disfigured face turned away. _Strange bedfellows_, he thought, as he reached to the floor to pick up his pants and shirt.

_Back to your old self, are you? Not so scary now. More's the pity for you, mate. _

With Buffy gone, Spike knew the demon would come. He'd felt it in his gut. Once dressed, Spike stepped backward to the open closet and picked a sword off the near wall. Left hand armed, he side-stepped the room to the top dresser drawer. He opened it and removed a pair of welder's goggles with the price-tag still dangling from Lowe's - a defensive measure against the hell light. He fitted the black lenses over his eyes and shifted face to prick his tongue. Blood filled his mouth as he circled the bed. His demon eyes read the scene clearly through the heavy tint in a rainbow of colored heat. The one-eyed villain gave off a glimmer of yellow warmth. Less than human, yet more than vampire. Spike gathered his breath and spit.

The demon's eyes opened, shocked at the blood dripping down its face.

"Got a scent now, don't you?"

The sword sang through the air just as a car passed by, strobing the room with light as the figure rose from the sheets. This time Spike could see it as it bent and moved around the light like pulled taffy, easily out-maneuvering his sword. It reformed behind him at the window and with a crash, broke through it and dropped down to the street.

"Oh, no you don't!" Spike dove out after it, landing in a roll on the pavement, sword still in hand. A passerby screamed at the sight of a gray figure sprinting down Ortega at half past witching hour followed by growling set of white fangs and the glint of medieval cutlery.

The demon ran north against the traffic toward the park. Spike was quick in the city landscape, he'd had years to master it, yet this beast was faster, keeping half a block distance between them as it darted down alleys, bounced on the the lids of rubbish bins and up over chainlink fencing. Spike regretted choosing the sword as he had no way to sheathe it for the fence climbing. He heaved the sleek steel up end over end, and with a jump and swing, hurdled the fence to catch the hilt before it hit ground on the other side, running to catch the scent of his own blood as it rounded the far corner.

Just as he was gaining on it, the beast took a leap for a fire escape landing and rattled up six floors to crash through a bedroom window at the top. A woman screamed and a man shouted as Spike ran up after, stopped at the window by invisible forces. Quickly spoken British courtesies weren't charming enough to secure an invite in goggled gameface. Humans. So skittish. He had to make for the top instead and wait for the thing to emerge. Spike paced the flat roof watching and listening for exits. More screams were heard and a dark figure slipped out the rear of the building followed by a woman swinging a broken broom handle. Spike wanted no part of that and jumped from roof to roof, as his target slipped through the shadows below.

The chase continued for a mile or more, inside and out, each break-in temporarily stalling Spike's ability to close the final yards. Black and whites began to screech through Sunset, answering calls from a dozen complainants. Somehow two men were simultaneously breaking and entering half the neighborhood (or one of them was at least) taking nothing, yet leaving a path of broken furniture and windows their wake.

Eventually, the creature seemed to tire and began to slow. Spike nearly caught it up as it rounded through a side yard. Sword at the ready, Spike made a diving swing at it and came down crashing into a plastic birdbath, covering his shoulder with slime. Once again, a sure shot had failed him. He cursed, and kicked to his feet as the demon leapt over the low garden wall and down over a slatted fence into a back alley one level below. Spike dropped down to the fence, running along the top boards like a cat, watching below until he was certain beyond all doubt he could make a clean leap. It would require two hands so he threw the sword, crouched and leaped down onto the back of his fleeing quarry. Vampire and demon hit the ground flying, scuttering across the pavement and into the back wall of the complex with a crack of stucco. In the blackness of the alley, Spike opened his jaw to take his prize.

Hot blood fountained up into Spike's mouth and without any thought other than _kill_ he began to suck it down. This is what he was, what he did - fangs to neck - and he reveled in it. The slick black hair shrouded his face as Spike's arms wrapped about the beast in a python grip. It struggled at first, but soon slumped in his arms, succumbing to the ferocity of his attack. The blood, thick and fresh, warmed Spike's belly like no meal he'd had in years. Hunger overtook rage and Spike wrapped himself tighter around the creature, biting deeper, snapping tendon, satisfying the burning need. He groaned with delight, as his lust rose and throbbed hard in his jeans. He'd suck this one dry, get his fill for once. God, for _once_, though it felt as if that moment might come too soon as the beast was shrinking in his arms. The light came then, that terrible defensive light shining out of every pore of demon skin as Spike drained him, gulp after delicious gulp. His eyes were shut safe behind the goggles, sucking and swallowing until all that was left was…human.

Spike threw the body out of his arms and scrambled back in shock. The pale flaccid figure slid to the pavement in a limp flop. Tattoos decorated the skinny arms and legs. Jesus Rocks! was airbrushed across the forehead. An animal bone was pulled through the nose. It was the kid. The one from the _Rage_. The one who'd wanted Spike to turn him.

"Sweet bleeding fuck! Where the hell did you come from?" Blood oozed weakly from the neck wound and Spike reached out to clamp it. His licked his messy lips. Not demon blood. Not one bit. No wonder it had felt so good going down. The changeling factor was more than Spike could grasp at present as he threw off the goggles and lifted the near-lifeless kid into his arms. He pressed an ear to the chest. Still a beat, but a struggling one where before there'd been nothing. Nothing but the blood. Spike tried to measure by the fullness of his own belly how close the poor sod was to his eternal wish.

"Won't turn you. Not for anything. Not even for her. Hospital. Hold on. I'll get you there."

"Mr….Spike?"

Spike looked up from his blue plastic waiting chair. "Yeah?"

"Um, Sir, I need to gather some information. You said you found the bite victim in an alley?"

Spike nodded. "About half a mile from here. Dog bite or something, right?"

The nurse looked puzzled. "It appears to be canine, although nothing like we're used to seeing. Pit bulls can tear people up pretty bad, but this was a larger breed. We've informed Animal Control. You had no association with the victim prior?"

"Well, not exactly. Not in so many weeks. You see, the fellow used to frequent a club I worked at a few months back. Maybe you've heard of it. The _Rage_?"

"The vampire club?"

"The one."

The triage nurse sighed. "We get some of them in here from time to time. Blood games gone wrong. You don't have anything to do with that sort of business, do you?"

"Me? Oh, no. To be honest, sight of blood, makes me a bit sick."

"I see. Thank you for the information. Oh, and do you know his name? I was told he was unconscious when you found him."

Spike thought back on it. "I think he asked me once to call him Ronny. It's been a while. I didn't know him that well."

"That is strange."

"How's that?"

"He's asking for you."

Ronny looked up at him from his white hospital bed with weak blue-lidded eyes. "Spike," he rasped. "What the fuck, dude?"

Spike eyed the red tube of transfused blood dripping into Ronny's arm. Type AB pos from the scent. It still smelled delicious despite his bellyful of it. "I was about to ask you the same thing. What the bloody hell is going on?"

The kid smiled weakly. "Is this what it feels like?"

"What feels like what?"

"The turning. Is it happening?"

Spike shifted uneasily. "No Ronny, Christ no. You're injured is all."

"So they tell me. Dog bite, a big one. Lots of blood loss. I'm not fucking stupid."

Spike lowered his voice, listening with sensitive ears to the comings and goings of hospital personnel. "Well, neither am I. I don't bite humans."

"Except for me?"

"No! You neither. Don't know how you came up. I was taking down a demon. Rat bastard's been harassing me for some time. I chased him over the whole district tonight. Thought I had him and then there was you. Gave me the fright of my life. You remember anything?"

The kid rolled his head. "I was screwing around down by the piers. Doin' some boarding. I thought I hit my head or something and then you were in my neck."

Spike glanced away. "Sorry about that. Like I said, wasn't you. Something's fucking with us, mate. How else did you get halfway across the city?"

The kid shrugged and closed his eyes. It would be a while before he went boarding again. "You could have finished the job."

Spike stepped closer. "I told you, I don't bite humans."

"I've got fifteen stitches in my neck that says bullshit."

Spike sighed. "Is there anybody I can ring for you?"

The kid didn't respond. Just drifted off. Spike tried to think who the kid used to run with. But it seemed whenever Ronny had come by the club, he'd come alone.

Spike looked around uneasily. He felt guilty as hell about the kid, but knew sooner or later the wrong people would start asking the right questions. Who knew if the kid would rat him out or not. Not the kind of thing Spike wanted getting back to London. It was the demon he was fanging for, dammit!

"Sorry Ron," he mumbled and moved to slip out. Just as he entered the lift he heard Ronny say one last thing.

"That's it. Go call your golden girl."

The quarters clinked into the slits and the sticky keypad toned out her cell number. Buffy picked it up on the second ring.

"Spike?"

"Yeah, baby. Sorry, I know it's late." She sounded half-asleep.

"Where were you tonight? I tried calling the booth several times."

Spike's tongue sank into his mouth. He had meant to tell her, but what came out was lies.

"I was hanging out in the Mission. Lost track of time."

"That's okay. Hey, that oven come in the other day?"

"Yeah, oven's all set. Tiles, too. Buffy…do you think I could talk to Dawnie?"

Buffy was quiet for a moment. "I think she's asleep."

"I know, but do an old sentimental demon a favor and wake her for me, will you? Just for a bit."

"I…hang on."

The phone made a few random clicking noises followed by silence.

"Spike, I'm sorry. I don't have the heart to wake her. She's been having such a bad time. She needs the sleep. Maybe tomorrow?"

"Sun will be up. Night's all I got, love. All of it."

"I'm sorry, sweetie. Look, we made arrangements for a truck to come tomorrow to put Dawn's furniture in storage. She's going to go live with her girlfriend Karen. I need to help her move but I should be home by Sunday, okay?"

"Sure, Buffy. I gotta go. It's late."

He hung up the line just as her tinny voice said "Goodnight."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

After another fitful day of unrest, Spike waited until dusk to return to SF General. Ronny was gone. They told him he'd unplugged his IV and walked out on his own power. No one had come to pick him up and he'd failed to leave any insurance information.

Spike walked the piers, searching for a sign of Ronny among the skaters, all the while keeping an eye out for his nemesis. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, Spike felt the demon had retreated. It had made its point and backed off until next time. On the walk back to Embarcadero, Spike stopped at a phone booth to confirm Buffy's flight schedule. She sounded overly cheery. She wasn't stupid, she knew Spike was off his game. But still the words wouldn't come. What could he say? _Buffy, funny thing happened while you were out…I nearly drank a bloke dead. What of that?_

His glum mood hung on for the rapid transit ride to SFO to pick her up five hours later. The windows were dark as the train slithered in and out of tunnels. He sat with his hands folded, his head empty except for the troubling whispers of his soul. _Unforgiven. Undeserved. _He was twenty minutes late getting to baggage claim. She sat alone by the high panes overlooking the tarmac. The airport was shutting down for the night - the runways were dark, the concourse shops gated. He approached unnoticed, until her senses caught his presence and she whipped around, eyes wide and worried. _Buffy._

"Spike!" She ran to him and her warm body and lips welcomed him. Her sweet urgent kisses woke the dead in him and his arms went around her, holding her tightly. Doubt and guilt faded into desire as he took in her scent. _My Buffy, my love. Forgive me._

They managed to keep it PG-13 until they boarded BART for the 40 minute ride back up to SF proper. Buffy tugged him on, her face set, hauling her monolithic bag through the sliding partitions until they found an empty carriage at the end of the train.

She threw her bag down like a brick wall between two rows and backed Spike over it onto the seats. She crawled over the luggage and climbed into his lap, pulling him up against the window to devour him - deep lush kisses that never really ended, just shifted slippery and hot from one articulation to another. He'd been sporting wood since ticketing, but the situation was hardening into a much more serious matter now. He panted around her relentless mouth, bringing his hands up under her blouse to grope and tease, encouraging her.

"Spike…mmm…want you."

"Got that," he gasped between kisses as her hand dove down his back. Warm fingers slipped under his belted waist to grasp a squeezy handful of vampire bum. "Mutual…oh, Buffy…_fuck_!" Make that bum and then some.

She pulled her clever fingers out and made a grab for his belt, tugging it loose. He caught her hands. "Wait, love." He nodded to the railway map above them. "Station coming up soon. Doors will open."

"I don't care," she said, tangling greedy fingers into his hair as she dipped to bite at his neck. The nips sent sharp tingles to every end of him. God, he loved that, his little wannabe Buffyvamp. With a groan he pulled her off and pressed his forehead to hers.

"Please, baby, just hang on. You pull me out of these trousers and there's no putting me back 'till I've shagged you halfway to Canada, you got it?"

She flashed him a 'don't fuck with me' look and struggled to get another grab at his belt. He diverted her hand, so she shoved him flat, writhing full body against him, moaning. Pinned to his back, he couldn't help but to kiss and grind right along with her like a couple of desperate teenagers caught at the park after dark. But dry hump was better than no hump--at least for the moment.

"South San Francisco approaching," the drone-voiced speaker announced. The train shook and moaned to a halt. The door warning binged. Spike stared wide-eyed at the parting orifice, the platform was empty. Thank god for small favors, because Buffy was twisting her hand between their devil-may-care bodies to dip a finger down the front of his chastity belt, judiciously toying with the tip of his knob still tucked angrily away.

"Ah! Shit! That tickles!" _Not hardly helpful. Bad Buffy, gotta spank you now. _Smack!

"Aaahh," she sighed in approval, taking his 'spanker' and laying it flat against her belly, shoving it down the front of her own jeans. Dammit! One thing to have to smell her drooling little qwim, quite another to have to feel it all hot and slick and bloody Christ, he had to fuck her. _Now_.

The doors binged and closed. The Colma stop was at least eight minutes further up the line. He could do a six minute mile, right? Time to find out. He lifted her up. "Off you go!" They sat up as he unbuckled and unzipped, flesh springing happily free. She opened her smiling lips and made a dive for it. Ooooh, that was the stuff. Spike's bigger head knocked back against the window. His breath make patterns across the view of the 101 freeway lights. _I am alive when she fucks me._ Too alive. Too randy. He wanted pussy. He wrapped an arm around her and rolled them both to the floor with a thud.

"Ungh! Spike, what the hell?" Buffy's eyes flashed in disapproval as she righted herself on the gray gum-residued carpet. Spike sat back against the train wall, beckoning.

"Quick, sweetheart, out of those jeans. Take my coat." He shifted out of the leather and tossed it to her. Granted a small measure of privacy by the looming lane-blocking suitcase, she stripped out of her jeans, shoes and sodden panties which he snatched up and sniffed while she shrugged into his coat.

"Sick," she commented, eyes aflame, as she crawled to him and straddled his legs, drawing her wet cleft up and down the length of him.

"Yeah, but you love it," he growled, nibbling her lower lip and pulling it in for a luscious suck. "Fuck me, baby."

The train hummed and slowed down for a turn, throwing them back into the wall as it slid into a tunnel of red and blue blinking lights. The interior illumination failed and in the darkness Buffy rose before him in eerie incandescence as she mounted and began to ride. He'd wanted it hot, quick and dirty, but now that he was in her, surrounded by her, he wanted it to last. Bugger the potential passengers, this was his homecoming right here, right in this beautiful sweet cunt. Let 'em come and watch. Might learn a thing or two.

"Hey, this car's empty!"

Bloody buggering fuck! He wasn't serious! A trio of teens came bursting in through the separating doors, letting in a swoosh of musty tunnel air. If Buffy had heard them, she gave no indication. Eyes closed, neck arched, chest heaving, all her focus was on her core and the phallus that occupied it. Spike tugged her to him, and tucked her head to his shoulder, drawing his knees up under the hem of the coat. She groaned and kept up the hip pumping while Spike stared in mild terror up the dark aisle. What was the fine for performing an act of public indecency in the presence of a minor?Or was that how many months behind bars?

"Take this seat! Scoot over. Don't grab my ass, fag!"

Lovely, they'd settled on half a dozen rows behind them, two boys and a girl out past curfew and restless. Didn't kids have parents these days?

Spike stroked Buffy's hair and whispered to her. "Love, listen to me. I wouldn't have the stones to ask you to stop if my unlife depended on it, but we've got company, so keep it dark, yeah?"

She mumbled something incoherent into his neck as she continued to move him within her, squeeze and release, squeeze and release. Shit, that felt good. He huddled down with her, wrapped her up in his arms and just held on. She bucked and twisted as best she could, but soon gave in to a high, somewhat strangled, sound. He knew that sound, that was Buffywhimper for frustrated to the point of implosion.

"Ah, sweet, can't come like this, can you?"

She shook her head, wordless cave-Buffy style. He couldn't either, not when he got this wound up. He knew what they both needed, but hell, not terribly free with the Kama Sutra at present.

"Hey, is that someone's bag over there?"

Even worse.

"That's a big fucking bag. Who left it…shit it's not a bomb, is it? I dunno, why don't you go kick it?"

Bloody hell, he'd soon have to resort to a round of peek-a-boo with game face and hope these kids scared as easily as surfers and weren't fond of chopsticks or pencils.

One of the twerps stood up and started to shuffle closer while the other two laughed. Buffy had managed to thrust her way into uncovering Spike's left hip. He put a palm on the floor to try and shift them back under the leather. The steps drew close. Fangs it was, dammit, and he started to bring them out when his ring tapped the edge of the metallic seat leg. Change of plan. He tapped it again, rhythmically: tic, tic, tic. The kid stopped just a shadow above them, listened and leapt backwards.

"Shit, guys! It's ticking! Fuck! Run!" They scrambled and ran back uptrain, likely heading to alert the driver. But there was still time enough to finish the job before the next station arrived and a new set of possible variables boarded.

Spike threw the coat off and grabbed Buffy up, tossing her face-first onto the seat bed, arse up and knees on the floor. He came up behind and thrust in for all he was worth. The tunnel cleared and the lights came back on just in time for him to watch himself coursing in and out of her while the speeding train thundered on, driving all sorts of lovely vibrations between them. He hadn't had this much fun on an underground since…_best not think about that, pleasure the girl, now_. He bent and ran his tongue up her spine as he reached around her hip to seek and capture her hot nub. He rolled it between his forefinger and thumb a little coarsely to match the ruthless pistoning of his groin. She was gripping the fraying fabric in her hands, slamming back into him, back arched, taking him in deep, weaving his name into a lovely howl as she came all tight and gorgeous around him.

"That's it, baby. That's it…good girl. Let it go. Let it all go. Hang on. Gonna fuck you so good…ahh, hell, it'll keep…_nnggh_!" He thrust up into her with a growl so raw it brought down his fangs. Damn. Wasn't like him to do that - but Christ, it felt so good to let it all out. "God, sweetheart - don't ever leave again. I can't stand it. Bloody worthless without you."

"Spike, my God…" she said, heaving air as she trembled against the fraying seat cover. He fell forward on her, resuming human, kissing her hair where it now just reached her shoulders. _My goldilocks._

The train was slowing, another stop coming. Spike kissed her and pulled out - one more stain for the gray carpet. He stroked her arm. "Quick, love, get dressed. Best not press our luck."

She found her arms and pushed up, turning to him with wet eyes and a hug that knocked the residual breath out of him. She thumped his back with a fist. "Missed you, you big dope," she said. Spike grinned into her hair - _bloody well deserved after all_.

Back at the flat they took it slower. He spent a fair bit of time between her thighs working her up and down with his tongue, feeling around her moist folds with his fingers, reacquainting himself, while she moaned and cursed and thrashed above him. She wanted him to fuck her arse again, one handful of fingers crammed up her twat, the rest in her mouth. Took thighs of steel to get this girl off sometimes, but fucking her paralytic beat the hell out of fighting. Or talking. Sometimes.

In the end, when the bed sheets were destroyed and the downstairs hag had dropped blessedly dead (one could hope) from pounding at the ceiling, it was Buffy who begin the conversation.

"What was Hell like?"

"Huh?" Spike snorted awake. He'd drifted off with his cheek against her breathing belly.

"Hell, when you were there, what was it like?"

He stole a glance at her. Her hair was splayed across the mattress, her arms were limp, one hand sunk into the last surviving pillow. Her eyes were soft, staring up at their fog-stained ceiling. She was open. This was an invitation.

Spike settled back against her and hugged her leg. "Well, there's a reason they call it Hell, you know."

"They call a lot of places Hell," she said. "I want to know about yours."

He thought it over, shut his eyes and conjured. "There's no real space or time in Hell. Everything is, everything was, and it goes on forever though you never really see it. There's the usual: fire, blackness, pits, chains, monsters, tiny yapping lap dogs. Some demons call it paradise."

"Were you in pain?" she asked quietly.

"Always."

Her hand came down and stroked his hair. He took a breath and the heaviness passed. "Some of it wasn't so bad. Seems a fellow can get used to just about anything. Pain is simply another way of being. You get numb to it. You accept it. Thought it was what I deserved. There was some measure of peace in that. Can't rightly say why they let me go. Thought I was going to be there forever."

"The Powers, the ones who set you free, did they speak to you?"

"Yeah, bloody well did, for days or more, yammering on. Said lots of things, mostly in rhyme, mostly to William. You know, I get really brassed about that; haven't been Mr. Bloody for an age. You'd think I could change my name and it would stick after a hundred years …"

"Spike, did they tell you if it was a reprieve? Were there conditions? Did you make them any promises?"

"No, I didn't. They gave me a choice; I took it. I came back…for you. Buffy, where's this coming from?"

She was quiet and at first he didn't think she was going to share her thoughts with him.

"He just left her," she said. "Packed up a few things and went. No warning, no sign. Everything was great. And then it wasn't."

"Uh…? Oh, Dawn. Yeah, the prick cocked things up pretty badly for her, didn't he?"

"She's devastated. She's hiding it well, but it's just killed something in her. Trust, I think. That's what it is. Hell is where you find it I suppose."

Spike lifted his chin but she was still far away. "Buffy, I'd never leave you, you know that."

She bobbed her chin. "I know. Not if you could help it."

"Hey, I've been helpin' it for near a century and a half. And aside from that crater incident, I've got no plans for getting blown away on the sodding wind. Not now. Not ever. I've got my girl to take care of. I meant that. For the rest of your days."

She blinked and he could see the start of tears in her distant eyes. "That's just it. We'll always be counting my days. They'll run out and…"

He reached for her hand. "Buffy?"

She whispered. "We won't always be together. If Hell is where you find it, we both will."


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

Hell didn't come on so fast. It worked through his world in capricious ways, intermixed with joy and peace. Spike was no stranger to loneliness and was slow to recognize it as it began to seep into their home like the autumn fog. He knew that in creating a new life for Buffy it would eventually carry her away into the day, and one couldn't expect to court the sun without getting a little burned. Her shop opened more or less on schedule and with the opening of that small glass door, another one began to ease closed. Humans, it would seem, preferred eating their soups and salads in the daylight. Which left Spike little choice but to poke Buffy awake before dawn and see her to the shower and out the door by sunrise to meet the morning rush. The shop closed at two, after luncheon, but there were orders to make, food to stow and bills to collect and pay. She'd hired some help to come in to chop and simmer, but the afternoons and evenings were spent holed up in her office alone, punching adding machine keys.

Left to himself all day, Spike saw to the home. He swept, dusted, laundered and hauled rubbish. Domesticated, he would have called himself if he could admit it to anyone. It was easy to see now how the midnight surfers could have second guessed him for the vampire he was if they saw him swiffering the hardwood floors and hanging scanties to dry in the shower stall. He didn't venture out much, even at night. Buffy would come home smelling of dried onions and most nights wanted a shower and a foot rub and little else. He'd tuck her up into bed and kiss her hair and watch her sleep, counting the nights until Saturday, their only true time together, as the shop stood closed on Sundays.

Between weekends, Spike settled into the TV Guide and took up a renewed interest in reading paperbacks and even tried his hand at cooking. Sort of, as long as Rachael Ray kept it simple and cheery for him and the results could be put up for when Buffy came home and got a chance to taste it. Day by day the apartment was becoming his castle again. Spike found owning a loveseat and an armoire with matching end tables wasn't the killing stroke to his sense of personal identity as he feared it would be. He still wore mostly black, peroxided another layer of porcelain off the sink once a month, drank blood from a tacky gothic chalice Clem sent him once as a house warming gift (although never in bed anymore) and smoked like a furnace - though now he was an outdoor furnace who lounged in a rusty folding chair with his legs up on the fire escape railing with an old coffee can for company. This arrangement worked fine for them as long as the rain kept away and he remembered to brush his fangs before bed.

But one mundane circumstance all couples take in stride proved to be a particularly sticky situation for a platelet-sensitive vampire whose lover happens to be a healthy living female. It was something they'd never run into before, having lived apart, and Spike hadn't even thought of it, until it began and then it was all he could think of. He tried to come up with excuses for needing to get out alone in the evenings after she came home from the shop. She accepted his fabrications blithely with a kiss goodbye at the door as he moved away from her brief embrace to make himself scarce and clear the scent from his brain.

By midweek even walking into the flat while she was out became a private torture for him. She was discrete, of course, but struggling to sleep in their bed alone with a bloodhound's sensitivity only made the cravings worse. Giles had been wise to secure him a steady supply of human blood to placate his nature. It nearly did the trick most days, especially when warmed slowly over the stove in one of Buffy's fancy copper saucepans. And it wasn't as if he didn't walk past countless females every night in a similar state. Her chemistry was different, however, far more potent and seductive. The faintest scent of her now would bring down his teeth and sully his head with impossible demands. This wasn't a matter easily resolved by a coffee can and folding chair. So Spike grabbed his coat and an extra pack of type-O to go and headed deep into the park where he sweated out the days in a drainage culvert watching the living walk their pets across the bridge above through yellow eyes.

She was on to him before long and came home a few hours early one afternoon to catch him running his arm under the kitchen sink while sucking the last of a cold blood pack through his teeth.

"Spike? What are you doing?"

He spit the spent bag out on the counter with the other two - all punctured and sucked clean. Her timing wasn't perfect, but he'd had a chance to fill his belly and calm his face at least. He shut off the water and managed to wrap his bleeding arm in a dishtowel before she entered.

"What happened to you?"

"It's nothing," he said, holding the wound to his chest.

"Let me see," she said, trying to take his arm. When he resisted she reached for his hair instead, plucking out a leaf. "Have you been sleeping in the park?"

"I've had some…things to see to," he argued lamely. Her scent wasn't as strong now but it made him stupid all the same.

"What things?" she pressed, getting his arm away from him and starting to unwrap it. "Were you in a fight? Oh, my God. Who bit you?"

He shook his head, embarrassed. "I didn't think you'd be home…I'm…having a bit of a bad week."

"I guess. Spike, I don't understand what's going on with you, you've been twitchy for a while now. Is somebody after you? Is it kittens again? I need to know."

"Buffy, it's not your problem."

"Like hell it isn't. Tell me who did this so I can go kick them a new ass."

He sighed. "It's me, Buffy."

"Huh?"

"I'm the guy whose ass you need to replace."

She was completely bamboozled. "Spike, pretend I don't speak doubletalk for a minute. Who. Bit. You?"

"I bit me. It was stupid. I got caught out in the daylight. I needed to feed."

She eyed the empty bags dripping onto the beige tile. "And you couldn't come home the last two nights because…?"

"Because I didn't want…I've been having a bad week." He shut his eyes, mortified. "We've _both_ been having a bad week."

"Oh!" Her headlights came on. "Oh, God. I didn't even think about that."

"Yeah, neither of us did," he said, much relieved he hadn't needed to draw her a picture - with one of Giles' big red Sharpies no less.

"Hasn't this come up already? I mean, I've been living here with you now for…oh, I was at Dawn's last time. Yipes. How did you handle this one before?"

"Before you, all my girlfriends were conveniently dead. And when we were in…well, back then, it was easy enough to slip off for a week."

She let his arm go and leaned back against the sink with an odd grin. "And here I thought maybe you were stepping out on me."

He laughed ruefully. "Hardly."

"These are the kinds of things couples need to be frank about, you know. You really had me worried."

"I'm sorry. I just thought the subject was a mite too delicate to bring up over popcorn and Wheel of Fortune."

"So what do we do? We've got to figure something out. Can't have you biting off a limb every time I get a cramp."

"I stay away; that's what I do. This is my problem, not yours."

"You need to get in here for blood."

He looked to the fridge. "I could get a cooler."

She started to giggle.

"What?"

"The things my mother never told me about dating…I'm sorry, I don't mean to tease you. This is easy. I'll come home an hour or so after sunset and leave a half hour before sunrise. That way you won't burn up trying to get back home and save your back from bench-rail marks."

"I guess that would work."

"It'll have to. Gah, your arm is a wreck." She reached for him, stroking his hand. "Let me bind that for you."

"Buffy…" The pleading in his voice stopped her. His eyes were fixed on where her fingers touched his wrist.

She withdrew her hand, taking a step back. "It's worse when I touch you."

"Infinitely."

Her expression changed into one of fascination. She caught his eyes. "Does it…have to be a bad thing?"

He swallowed down the urgency he felt thrumming through his dead flesh. "I wish not. But I can't trust myself to explore that possibility. You know why."

"Angel," she said quietly. "But he was going to die."

"And so will I if we don't stop bloody talking about it, all right? It's not going to happen."

She nodded and moved to the doorway. "Well, I'll go run off to the store or the movies or something. We need pickles. Go clean up, sleep for a while if you can and I'll come back after sundown."

"Buffy…"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you…for putting up with me."

She smiled sweetly at him as she got her coat. "Don't mention it. You certainly keep things interesting."

He washed up, wiped down the kitchen tiles, showered the park dirt out of his hair, bound the holes in his arm and collapsed in their bed. He could still smell her, but the gorging and the sharp pain of his self-inflicted wound were distracting enough to send him into an uneasy sleep.

That is until he felt the cold click of the manacle fasten around his right wrist. He whipped around, ready for a fight to find himself chained, arms behind his back, an iron band snug around each wrist. "What the...?" It was fully dark in the room, but he knew he wasn't alone - warm mellow musk laden with the bright burn of blood filled his nose. The trunk was out in the center of the bedroom floor, open. These were her chains. "This isn't a good time for games, pet."

"It's the perfect time and it's not a game," she said, coming into his line of sight and kneeling next to the bed so they were nose to nose. "It's about who we are."

He tried to wriggle closer to her, but the chains held him. He watched her eyes, a fierce desire burned in them, as it always did when the demon threatened to rise in him. "I said no. Go back to the pictures, love, like a good girl and let me sleep this one off."

She shrugged and stood up, walking around the bed. "The movie was lame. I couldn't keep my mind on it. Who cares about two people sending emails to each other hoping to meet up one day when you've got a vampire waiting at home, half out of his mind for a taste of you."

He twisted around, the iron biting his wrists as the chains rolled under his back. "Buffy, listen to me. I'm more than just half out of mind, it's more like four-fifths and that's a very dangerous place to have me."

She stopped and looked down at him, as he was, unclothed and chained. She licked her bottom lip. "I know."

"Damn you. Have you any idea what it would do to me if I hurt you?"

She slipped her dress to the floor, soon followed by a string of lace. She crawled to him, her arms to either side of his shoulders, her lips close to his. "You can't, I've got you bound."

He shut his eyes and tried to resist breathing, but her tongue was working a spell along his chin and across his lips where he gasped and let her in all sweet and hungry - and they called Willow the witch.

He threw his head aside to break from her, trying to avert the anger that was rising in him as hotly as the lust as she kissed and nipped at his throat. The two passions only fed each other and he wouldn't have it - even though her scent was so close and ready - her blood, a taste of it could make it good, pure. One taste. He'd had it before, a lick from a chance cut of glass, and it had thundered him right back into himself.

She was eyeing him, waiting, breathing on him, sure in her knowledge that his nature would win out.

"You'll have to do better," he said.

"Really...?" In a flicker of movement, she drew her finger across her slit and spread the red tip along his upper lip, right under his nose.

"I meant..." he said with a shudder as he breathed it in. "...with the chains. Bind my legs - I can't have any advantage."

She leaned to his ear, "That's what I wanted to hear."

She restrained him well - chains, padlocks, the works. He was bound wrists to ankles with not much more than his head free to move about. That still left the teeth.

"Buffy," he said as she spread her thighs across his face. "Watch my eyes. If they start to turn, hit me. Hard."

"I can take you," she said as his tongue found her.

She was so wet it took several licks to get at the source of her, centered in hot swollen folds. In pretense he told himself this was for her, a special treat to feed her dark sense of romance. He and the animal within would lie dormant, only to rise in solitude when putting a fist through a wall as he worked it out with the other would seem sensible. And he told his tongue to do so, to work magic on her tender nerves, tease her, work her up slow, please her and end this before it got out of hand.

That fiction played well until he got his first real taste - she was nearly done, but it ran out with her arousal like a vein of hidden gold. It shook him through, the hot zing of it as it ran down his throat into his belly, spreading into his greedy veins, driving his cock to attention as his tongue wriggled in deep for more. He fought the chains to try and rise up, abandoning every pleasuring effort for the sake of the hunt, licking her hard, spreading her with his nose, sniffling like a dog. It made her cry and writhe, calling for God and the saints too, maybe, to save her from her lover's demon mouth. He'd fallen into it so easily, the warning clang of the soul all drowned in the excitement of her ripe blood, until the tight twist of her fingers pulling his hair back tore him off.

"Eyes," she said and he opened them, forgetting. His human eyes could still see her in the darkness all shadow and slick sheen - his path to glory open and wet above him. She let him go and he was back to it, eyes open this time as the sweetest stream bubbled up out of her, bathing his tongue where he savored it, let his mouth fill, before the throat took it down and the room went red.

The pain must have come from her blow, precise and merciless to the side of his head. It knocked him back just long enough for her to leap away. She crouched now at his chained and struggling knees, listening to his growls, keeping a calculated distance. She was all heat and blood to him now, yellow and red lines running hard through a body of cooler blue. Her mouth and nostrils were a warm open pink - the heat of her cunt a slice of brilliant white. He fought at his chains, twisting his head about, trying to bite himself free. The ecstasy of the blood ran hard and fast in him, eating away everything but the drive for more, to tear flesh from limb to suck out the rest. She waited all pulsing and alive until his thrashings settled in defeat, leaving him with curled lips and the breath hissing through clamped fangs. She pulled up his chains so his legs came together with his arms tight behind him and she mounted his hips, taking the dead blackness of his cock up into her light where she rode him down, feeding her own hungers, catching him, pulling him back from the insanity of the blood and into the salvation of the flesh. He met her blow for blow, her fingers a blur at her clit, until she tipped her head and moaned one long sweet cry that shot off his balls and his roar echoed hers into oblivion.

It was early morning when she came back in the room. He was nearly awake, lying in his restraints where she'd left him to sleep it off. He was human enough again, though the warmth of her blood still flowed in him, dying gently, leaving his flesh renewed and primed in its wake.

Buffy knelt on the sheets next to him and fit a cigarette between his lips. She reached and fished his lighter out of a discarded pocket and struck a flame for him.

"Thanks," he said around the end of it after a few puffs.

"Thought you might need it," she said, drawing her fingers through his hair. "How do you feel?"

He felt fucking incredible, but he wasn't going to let on, not on his undead life. "Unchain me, love."

She went to her trunk for the keys and set about it as he tried to keep ash off the sheets. His wrists were a bit worse for wear, but he didn't feel the pain, far from it. He grabbed a coffee mug off the nightstand for an ashtray and sat back against the headboard pillows, finishing the smoke. She came and sat beside him, leaning her head against his shoulder.

"I thought it was pretty great," she said as if they'd just watched a rerun of Roseanne together.

He crushed the sputtering cigarette in the mug and lit a new one. "It was bloody stupid, that's what it was."

She sat up and looked at him. "I didn't hear you complaining."

"That's because there's a side of you that's gone deaf," he said, pointing at his head where he could feel a nice red welt. "Or maybe it's always been that way, I don't bloody know. I used to think it was all me. I was the one who let things get out of hand - the soulless one minus the hand-brake. But that's only half the truth of it."

"I was giving you what you wanted. No reason to have a snit about it."

"It was dangerous, pet. What's more you knew it, too - it's what gets you all bothered - toying with the monster in me. You've got a knack for bringing him out for a slap and tickle when it suits you - better than chocolate, or whatever the hell it is women want."

She was hurt. Embarrassed, even, by his scolding. God, it was adorable. "That road runs two ways, Spike."

He chuckled. "Of course it does, but then one might expect that from a demon."

"What I would expect is for you to understand."

"Buffy," he said, eyeing her carefully. "Don't ever doubt that I do. I know you, better than you think. I also know you have the upper hand. But don't mistake that for exemption. When it comes to the blood, _your_ blood, all I see is red."

She absorbed this slowly - the heat in her cheeks faded. "I'm sorry."

"Hm, no you're not. You've got one now for the scrapbook. You can bury that treasure however you like - but from here out I don't give you the opportunity. It's the park for me and the pictures for you, until we can both behave without all the anarchy."

She gave him that look. "I was good, huh?"

"Good is rather an understatement but it's all this bloody vampire's going to share on the subject. You'll have to hunt my dreams for the rest."

She took the cigarette from his fingers and tossed it in the mug where it sent up a swirl of smoke. She spread herself across his chest and began to kiss all the places where the iron had bruised his skin and where her fists had struck in her own defense - and it was heaven to just lie back and feel.


	15. Chapter 15

**A Dying Dream - Chapter Fifteen**

by europanya

**Summary: **A decade after closing the Hellmouth and doin' time in Hell, Spike is living alone in San Francisco when he encounters Buffy unexpectedly. At a loss of what to do with themselves in a nearly demonless world filled with superslayers, they try to rebuild a life together. Unfortunately, not all of their demons have been laid to rest--not the ones within nor without. This is AU for Angel S5. S5 had not aired yet when I began writing this after BtVS closed its doors at the conclusion of S7. Is this 'verse, Spike went to hell after closing the hellmouth. Hope that clears up the confusion.

**Notes: **Here's a fic I dropped like a rock ages ago, many apologies. It was largely due to illness, which I am now on the mend with. Now that I've been sucked back into vampiredom thanks to Moonlight, some of my new readers are nosing through my old Buffy stuff and asking that I resurrect some of my dropped vamp plots. I did have most of this story finished back in the day, so here's my best effort at completing it. It has about six more chapters to go. Root me along! Feedback is my crack! Thanks, Sowell, for the kick in the arse.

**Chapter Fifteen**

Spike woke. He blinked into the gray pre-dawn light. Buffy lay beside him, her back to him, hair spilling in golden trails over her neck and shoulders. She'd dressed before sleep into a sleeveless top and panties, both white and clean against her soft skin. He touched her hair, followed the silken paths with his fingers, wondering as always how it was she'd come to be his. So pale and small, so unlike the other slayers he had touched. Prickles rose on her arm, reacting to the cool of his skin. In his dreams he'd returned to the fires of China and bent to taste the kiss of blood from the broken girl at his feet. Now awake his mouth still held the memory of Buffy's flavor. They were nearly the same, these precious girls--sweet, thrilling and deadly. He kissed Buffy's shoulder and tucked the blanket around her as he slipped out of bed and dressed.

She found him sitting in the open kitchen window, smoking, one leg on the counter, the other dangling over the metalwork of the fire escape. She'd pulled the blanket over her shoulders to keep warm, but kept her belly exposed. He could see her taut nipples under the fabric and where her curls peeked around the trim of her panties. "Hey," she said, already sensing his mood as she hopped up to sit on the counter, drawing her knees up and leaning her shoulder against the cupboards. He watched her throat as she yawned. "When'd you get up?"

"'bout half an hour ago. Couldn't sleep much. Kept having dreams. Shouldn't you be getting off to the shop?"

Her eyes were soft gray in the dim light. "It's early yet," she said, regarding him. "You know, you don't have to keep my schedule. I know night isn't your preferred rest period."

"That's not it," he said and brought the cigarette to his lips. He held the smoke in until it stung, then sent it out the window. "I've been dreaming about the others. About Nikki and the Peking girl. Except, they're not dreams like you'd know them, more like home movies. I'm reliving them all over again."

She looked at her bare toes and drew them up under the hem of the blanket. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Don't know. I don't care for it--that I do know. Wish I had some say in the playbill but my subconscious was never a venue much to my taste."

"Are you killing them…" she asked without emotion. "…in your dreams?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes I'm just watching them. Nikki in particular. I took my time with her. Wanted to know her. Wanted to know everything about her. She was alone, you know. Had a watcher and some friends but she didn't have any real support. No family to speak of. Poor as a mouse, too. Tiny little flat, hardly a home. Just a space to come and go from."

"Being a slayer isn't the kind of job girls rush to apply for," Buffy conceded.

"Why'd I do it?" he asked the window. "She had nothing, not even a bed for her son. And after me, he had even less. I guess that came back to bite me on the arse, but still. I ask myself, why?"

"That's just who you were then," she offered. "A vampire who killed for the thrill."

"Is that it?" he asked. "No, it isn't. She wasn't a thrill-kill to me. That's what a bloke did to get his rocks off on a Saturday night in a filthy backlot at 3AM. This was different--I loved her."

Her eyes shot up to him, disturbed. "No, you didn't. You wanted her, but you didn't love her. You couldn't love her. You didn't have a soul."

He snorted and tapped ash out the window. "The soul. It's always convenient for you to sort it out that way, isn't it?"

Her eyes narrowed, trying to figure if he was being serious. "How else am I supposed to figure out your past? I have to find some way of… sorting you out or I couldn't be with you."

He turned his hand over, a gesture of 'sure, whatever works.' This was true, for her. "I won't deny it to you--the soul--it does make a difference. It weighs me down like a big bloody sandbag, makes me think more, feel more, self-loathe more, but it doesn't and never did make me love. I have my heart for that, useless though it may seem. You've never understood that. You've never accepted that. But I fell in love with you just once, at one moment in time, all gone to you--mind, body, heart and now a soul, yes, but it's only one card in the hand."

She braced her palms on the countertop to argue him. "Our soul is what makes us human. You can't connect to another person without it."

"You're right on that, too. The soul does connect me--to the others. The tens of thousands who were murdered by my hands and fangs. We're all a big pissed-off family now. That's what the soul gave me for my trouble. She's in there, too…Nikki--she feels me now in death just as I was drawn to her in life. The love I felt for her--I could have had it one of two ways: I could've fucked her or drank her dry, but in the end I did neither; I twisted her neck and walked away. And I ask again, _why_?"

Buffy sighed. "I don't have the answers to these questions. I wasn't even alive when they happened. I only have what I know, and what I know it that you're not that man anymore. You changed, on your own or for me, it doesn't matter--the result is what matters. It's who you are now that matters."

"So who am I now? A vampire who loves and doesn't kill to express it? Bully for me."

Her eyes went wide. "Yes! Bully for you, you jerk! Don't you get it? That means everything--that you looked inside yourself after a hundred years of doing what comes naturally to a vampire and you fought it, you turned your back on it. You took back your humanity. I can't believe that doesn't that mean anything to you!"

He paused, took in her flushed face and sparking eyes--all this emotion over him. _Is this why she's with me? Because of who I was? Would she have even noticed me if I'd always been good? _"No, Buffy, it doesn't. It was just a choice. I choice I made when I realized all that mattered anymore to me was that you'd think better of me if I stopped. If I tried. But I wouldn't have paused to consider it if the chip hadn't shut off all the distraction long enough for me to even notice there were other options."

She shook her head. "I don't except that. The chip tripped you up, made you vulnerable, but it didn't make you think differently. It didn't make you choose to defend me and my family, to help my friends, sacrifice yourself for the greater good. You could have loved me and shown it by trimming my rosebushes, but you took it all on--my battle, my destiny, you made it yours. You made yourself into my most trusted ally. My champion. Don't you remember? Before Sunnydale collapsed, it was you alone who stayed by me. All my friends, Giles, my sister, they all deserted me."

"Exactly."

"Huh…?"

"It's what I've been saying all along. A soul doesn't make one good or loyal. Love doesn't either. Angel had both. It was easy for you to figure him out, he's like a light switch. He's a harmless poof with the soul, rotten as all hell without. You keep trying to shelve me into those categories. But demon or no, only one thing makes a person good--it's what separates man from beast: Free will. You think you're safe with me because I have a soul, not so. You're safe because I love you and I made the choice to honor it, as best as I can."

"But you've been fine on your own. For years now since you came back. Nobody's been watching you. You could have gone back to the way you were, but something still kept you going. You're a card-carrying Council Decreed Resident, for crying out loud."

"That so? How many vampires still left on this mortal plane get shipped fresh human blood every three weeks?"

"What difference does that make?"

"I asked around. I'm the only one. Not even Angel gets the red carpet treatment--though he's got the dosh to do as he likes. And it's a huge bloody nuisance for them, too."

Her brows knit in thought. "I don't get it…what? Nobody gets hurt. Donate blood, ship it off to a vampire--who just happened to save the world--get a cookie. Big whoop."

"What you don't get is what Rupert never lets himself forget. He doesn't care _who_ I am, he cares about _what_ I am and keeping what I am as passive as possible. I'm not a light switch. Never was. I'm more like a dimmer switch or a…bloody hell, forget the electrical metaphors. Why do you think they all tried so hard not to let on I was back?"

Her forehead dropped to her knees in defeat. "Spike, this conversation is going nowhere. It's nuts." She lifted her eyes. "Are you trying to tell me you might just go all evil next week and bite me because you're bored, what?"

He snorted and gave in to a grin. "Not likely. It's just I can't find the dividing line as easily as you can and I wanted you to know that. I've heard you say often enough: 'Spike's changed. He has a soul.' And I'm telling you, that's pure bollocks."

"You might not agree with how I've come to understand you, accept you, but I have to believe the soul makes a difference, or I can't…do this. Be with you. Let you get close," she paused as she fought for the words. "…trust you again."

He knew what she meant and his heart ached to know it, that the pain was still there. "The soul makes me feel regret and shame for many things, love. But none so keenly as my one greatest mistake." There were tears in her eyes and he wanted nothing more than to reach over and hold her. "It burns harder than any kill in my memory--because, what I did to you…it _was_ an act of free will."

She wiped the tears from her cheeks, hugging the blanket around her, hiding her bare skin from him. "I know."

"And again, I ask myself: _Why_?"

The rains came after that. Whatever their kitchen confessional had been worth, it didn't settle in for the better. Buffy stayed out later and began working on her day off. When she did come home, Spike would be waiting, eager, gracious, wanting to talk, wanting to soothe, wanting to somehow get beyond the unease that wrapped around them whenever they ran out of mundane conversation. She'd hurry through the story of her day as she undressed for the shower--irate customers, rotten cabbages, spoilt soup. He'd get the water warmed and her supper bubbling and sit on the toilet lid as she had her wash, telling her which drawers held which skirts and blouses and was it alright he'd used her cell to order a $24 self-warming casserole dish off QVC? Money hadn't been an issue for him in years, but with their reserves gone and the shop struggling to gain sufficiency, all loose coin had to be rung in through Buffy's books.

She'd sit with damp hair and pick at his little meals while he sat across the kitchen nook, sipping blood, not because he was hungry, but to encourage her feeding. She was looking thin again, gray around the eyes, running herself down like she did when the world needed saving. She worried too much over things--big or little--that was just who she was. "It's the rain," he'd say. "That's what's keeping the luncheoners from strolling in off Guerrero. Don't want to get their fancy laptops damp. It'll pick up. We can manage. Right?"

At night he'd go out alone to settle his own nerves after hers were kissed and soothed and folded in blankets. He'd smoke as he walked, watching the sidewalks glow in the rain under the Korean neon. _Nothing is wrong_, he'd say to himself. _How can it be? This is Buffy. You're with Buffy. You love her. It's the shop, is all. You'll be fine. You're together. Nothing else matters. The weather will turn._

But the rain fell on and a time soon came when she didn't want his soothing at all.

_You hover_, she said just a hairline short of a snap and he'd backed away, climbed right on out the kitchen window. He kicked the rust puddles off his folding chair and sat smoking his hurt off until she turned out the bedroom lights. His walk that night took him to the sodden leaf-coated brick paths twisting up Telegraph Hill. At the top stood a stiff white tower constructed in the shape of a nozzle to honor a long-dead fire chief. Couples came here in cars or by foot to walk the cement rim walls surrounding the grassy peak. They sat arm in arm in the misting rain admiring the glinting rooftops outlining the Peninsula in rows while the dark waters of the bay drifted out through the Golden Gate.

Spike sat wrapped in his coat watching an oil tanker cruise in slow motion under the pin-point lights of the Bay Bridge. He'd not yet brought Buffy here. The City offered so much in romantic views, he'd forgotten them, counting his days indoors waiting for her to come home. _It's good to be getting out. She'd want this. Don't keep my hours, she says. Very well, I'll be my own vampire, then. _Just like he'd tried to be for the last hundred plus years. Laughter wafted from a couple of kids necking on the hood of a nearby car. Truth was he was miserable at it.

Spike pulled his shirt sleeve out to wipe the rain off his cheeks. Utter rubbish is what he was without a mate. And the irony was he had one--she just needed to be reminded of it. Spike got up and shook the droplets out of his hair as he left the lovers to their collective snog and slipped off down the hill following the scent of the ocean.

Back home in their bedroom, he stripped naked, toweled off and slid in next to her, wrapping an arm around her.

Buffy stirred and pushed back at him. "Shit, Spike--you're freezing."

"No kidding; sleeping with the living dead, remember? Come warm me up."

She rolled away from him and pulled the blankets around her into a cocoon. "Go take a hot shower."

He did, a good scalding one, to no apparent avail. She still pushed him off.

"What's the problem, love?"

She rolled over and blinked at him. "The problem is, it's late, and I have to get up and go run my store in four hours, that's what."

"I'm not asking for an all-nighter, pet. You could spare me a cuddle. Been weeks since I've been granted anything more."

She wrapped herself back up and closed her eyes. "Go to sleep."

He punched the pillow into place behind his head and laid staring at the ceiling while she snored.

_Ain't love grand?_


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen **

Buffy was up and gone before Spike woke the next morning. It was 7:30 by the time he got up, dressed, sucked a pack of blood and followed her out. The sun was still low enough that he could keep to the north side of the block without going up in smoke. Unfortunately, the final eastward street crossings through the Mission had to be done in a fiery blanket dash.

He pounded the rear metal door with a smoking fist until she opened it.

"Spike! What the hell?"

"On a bit of fire here, love," he said as he tried to beat out his left arm. "Water..._please_."

She hit him with a blast from the scullery sprayer. "Bloody Hell, that's cold!"

"Like it's going to kill you. What are you doing here?"

He shrugged and straightened the remains of his sopping shirt sleeve. "Came to see you."

"I'm busy," she said, tossing him a towel. "I've got the morning prep work to finish."

He dried himself off and grabbed her for a quick squeeze and kiss to the top of her head. "I want to help," he said in her ear. "Give me something to do—let me carve up a ham or...anything."

She gave him a wary look as she wriggled out of his grasp. "I don't really trust you with knives. Besides, we've talked about this. I need 'day' help--people who don't need to work with all the shades drawn. I'll have customers in here by 9. Go home before you can't go home."

He ignored her and took a seat up on the make table where they used to fuck like rabbits and watched her tear up lettuce. Out of habit, he reached for his pocket.

"Don't even think about lighting up in here," she said without looking up from the produce.

He crossed his arms and swung his legs. "Hey, um, I thought maybe tomorrow night, seeing as it's Sunday and all and you're shut down here, we might go out to the Sutro ruins by the cliffs and sniff out the beach caves."

"Can't."

"Can't?

"Sunday is when I catch up on paperwork."

"I am talking about the _evening_—no surprise."

"I need to sleep, I've got a new supplier to meet with bright and early Monday morning."

"We'll make it an early evening, then."

She reached into the soggy box of lettuce and ripped into a new head. "No evening with you is ever 'early.'"

He sighed. "We need to talk about this, love, because it's becoming a problem. You're working yourself day and night."

"Spike, the only problem we have is you. You're bored--you sit around all day with nothing to do, so you fixate on me."

"That's not true," he said, grabbing a head himself and knocking the core out of it against the cutting board, separating the leaves in a fraction of the time and tossing them to her. "I'd 'fixate' on you if the bloody Norman army was charging through our flat. I don't need to be bored."

"Well, you need to get a grip, Spike, because I can't manage this store and you at the same time."

"Buffy...it's just, I never see you."

"I live with you," she said, slicing into a giant tomato. "You see me every night."

"Not like I used to."

"Oh, God." She laid the tomato knife down on the table. "This is about sex again, isn't it? I swear, out of all of my..." She stopped herself but it was too late. He was good and pissed now.

"All of your _what_?"

She rubbed her forehead. "Spike, go home."

"All of your ex-boyfriends--what? Loved you like I do? Needed you like I do? Any of those nancy-boys even bat an eye when you didn't come calling anymore? Or maybe we're talking about your ex-_vamps_."

She drew her eyes up at him, cold. "Spike, if you're not under that blanket and out that door in ten seconds, I'm throwing you out."

He held up his hands and hopped down, backing away. He knew he'd stepped over a line, one they never discussed, but existed nevertheless. He could read it all over her face. "Sorry, love. Don't want you to break the new crockery over my head. I'm gone."

She came home late and tired as usual, trudging off to the shower without so much as a glance hello in his direction. He lay on the couch in the dark and watched the bathroom door shut and listened to the water starting up, imagining her in there, undressing. He shook the vision off and rolled to his side, clicking on the telly. He watched a decorating competition on the Home Channel until he heard the shower go off and the medicine cabinet open. _Fixated_. They never used that word on the daytime stories he watched, nor in the Romance novels he read—in those worlds it was called passion, love, devotion. Maybe that was just for folks living in some another dimension. He got up and approached the bathroom door.

He meant to just give the door a rap, but the uneven flooring let the tongue slip and it swung open. She had a towel around her head and another around her slim body, her fingers were busy with a cotton ball, wiping her nose and chin with some floral astringent.

"Hey, gorgeous," he said as he slipped in behind her. She gave his lack of reflection an irritated sigh. He touched her bare shoulders with gentle fingers, and bent to kiss her neck.

She shook him off. "Spike, down."

He sighed and leaned back against the wall while she began to brush her teeth. Her hands were quick on the handle, building foam."What's it going to take?"

"For you to get off? Feels like your hands work to me."

"Well that's a fine hello, isn't it? You could at least pretend to not be such a bitch for once. It would be a nice change."

She ignored him and bent to spit. _Bollocks_, this was hard. Dr. Phil probably didn't even have a fix for this one.

"Turn around, Buffy, please, so you can see me."

She took the towel off her head and began rubbing her hair dry in the mirror. He grabbed it out of her hand and threw it to the floor and took her by the shoulders to spin her around.

"I asked you to look at me."

Fire rose up in her eyes, not the good kind. His fingers gripped her skin.

"It's not like I ask for a lot, you know."

"You don't?" she said in quiet fury. "Then why are you grabbing me?" Her arms flew out and shoved him back into the wall, hard.

"Ow!"

"No means no, you idiot. Maybe you still need to work on that one."

"Buffy!" He followed her out, careful not to touch her, but she made the bedroom door first and slammed it in his face, bringing down a smatter of ceiling plaster. He could have taken the door out with one kick, but he was trying to be the better person here so he pounded it with a fist. "Buffy, open the bloody door!"

The door opened and a pillow and blanket hit him in the face before it slammed shut and locked again. The hag downstairs started hitting her ceiling with a broom handle. He stomped at the hardwood with his heel and bent down. "We're not bloody shagging up here for Christ's sake! It'd take a bloody miracle for that to happen!"

He caught his breath and glared at the door as if it had grown bars and locks. "Bugger-it," he mumbled and took up his bedding and made it back to the couch in time for the final design makeover reveal.

He did finally get some, not nearly as much as he wanted, but it was one step closer to forgiveness. It cleared his head at least.

"I'm sorry about the other night," she said as she moved out of his arms and sat up, drawing the sheet up over her breasts. It was morning and the room smelled of sex and of her again; it gave him some solace.

"I don't understand what's been happening," he said as he lay on his back with his arms out, breathing it in. "Don't you want me?"

She gave him a little smile. "I do. Just not all the time anymore."

"I miss you, love, when I'm not close to you. It's not all about the big bang, you know."

She nodded. "I know. I've been stressed. I have so many things to do now, I don't...have a lot of time. I'm sorry, sweetie. But it's really important to me that I don't screw this up. I've had so many disappointments in my life."

He nudged her under the sheet with his knee. "Go on. Get out of here. Don't be late. I'll live. I might go a little crazy in the meantime, but I understand."

"Thanks." She smiled warmly at him and got up, letting the sheet drop from her pale curves as she left the room.

They reconciled Spike's boredom issue by giving him evening caretaker duties. Buffy would click keys and rustle papers in the office until Spike came at nightfall. They'd have a bite in the shop, then she'd go home for a few hours of downtime alone while he scrubbed, swept, mopped, emptied the bins and locked up. By the time he got in around ten she'd be rested enough usually to welcome his advances in the shower and elsewhere. The wages she saved in letting the former janitor go was transferred to extra hours for the morning cook who got things chopped and toasted while Buffy slept in nestled against Spike's considerably warmer chest. Maybe they'd duck that guest spot on Dr. Phil, yet.

Not long into his new career, Spike had just slipped out the back door of the shop for a smoke when he heard an all-too familiar step come round the loading platform.

"Bleeding hell..."

"Good evening to you, too, Spike. How's it going?"

Spike leaned against the metal door, knocking his head back to dull the pain. "Trust you to turn up just as my life's going right again." He took a drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke up into the late-night fog. "I've got to be cursed."

"I take it you have some idea why I'm here," Angel said, moving into the light.

"I have a theory."

"It's about your roommate."

"Yeah...?" Spike said, already exhausted. "What of it?"

Angel brushed away some of the trash with his shoe, finding himself a nice clean patch of asphalt to glower in. "Came as a surprise. Last I heard she was living in a tract home near the crater."

"She surprised you and me both, mate. Whatever you may think, slayer sought me out this time."

"Even more unsettling."

Spike smirked. "Been a while since you knew her, you know. People change. You been up to see her? Tell her what a bloody awful mistake she's making? Brood, preen, look all smoldery?"

Angel glanced in the general direction of the flat. "No, I haven't. Nor plan to. You're my only stop on this trip."

"Well that's decent of you. You've twisted the girl's head enough already. She's happy now, you know. With me."

"I believe you."

Spike eyed him. "Then why the visit? Came to offer some vampire-to-vampire advice? I've got news for you, I've clocked far more hours with the girl than you. I've got it all down. How'd you find out anyway, she ring you?"

"Nope. Research. My firm was doing a check on recent Bay Area business license applications for a case. Imagine my shock when her name came up—in San Francisco, under your address, no less."

Spike smiled and flicked off a red spark of ash. "That must have turned a little screw."

"Spike, let's cut the bullshit and get to the point. Buffy's with you now. I can accept that, sort of, but hear me out. I'm not just letting this go. I'll be keeping tabs on you. You fuck up, even a little--you'll answer to me, you got it?"

Spike bored into him with his eyes. "Is that a threat?"

"Consider it a warning. You messed up with her before, pretty damn badly, as I recall."

"She forgives me."

"Does she?"

"You really _don't_ know her anymore, do you? She's not a schoolgirl--she doesn't need a note to bunk homeroom. What's more, you don't know _me_, what I've done for her, to earn her."

"Bought yourself a soul. I've heard that story several times. Very noble of you. Brings a tear."

"And what did you ever do for her? Oh, yeah, you broke her heart...twice."

"You know, as a matter of fact, I did. Something you don't have enough sense to do."

"Is that why you didn't tell her I was back? Not even when she came to you...searching for me? "

"Partially."

"Listen to me. Angel. I love that girl with everything I've got. She's not wanting for anything anymore. And despite what you think, she needs a vampire in her life--one who doesn't fall short on the job."

Angel smiled slowly. "You had to go there, didn't you?"

"Every blessed night. So if you do decide to pop in for tea, make it before ten. Otherwise, we don't come to the door...for anything."

In an instant Angel had his hand clamped on Spike's throat, his eyes an inch away. "Don't. Fuck. Up."

Spike moved to throw him off but his grandsire had already vanished into the fog.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

Spike woke late the following day--well past noon. It had taken him sometime to fall asleep after making love to Buffy. If she felt something different about his touch, she didn't voice it, just accepted his neediness and rode out his anxieties through every wet frantic thrust. She'd urged him on--telling him how good he was, how hard he felt inside her, how hot she was for him, his body, his cock. The extra strokes still couldn't shake the dread that had chilled Spike's bones ever since Angel had materialized out of the wet air.

Spike got up and walked stiff-legged about the flat, yawning as he fished about the fridge for blood and muttered a curse at Giles for being tardy with his shipment. Blood got stale after too long and there wasn't a lot left. He hoped bloody UPS wasn't on strike again. A microwaved mug in hand later, Spike settled himself down on the couch for a good scratch and a tour of the telly.

Midday news was all that was on the locals, and he flipped past until the third broadcast made him jump to his feet, spilling his cup of red over the coffee table and into Buffy's stack of thirsty fashion magazines. _Oh, God. No._

In a vampiric flash Spike was in boots, jeans, and shirt, flying out the door of the flat. It wasn't until he threw the downstairs front hall door open into the brash light of high noon that he remembered the flammable trait of his heredity. The hair caught first, then his right arm. Sunlight burned his sensitive retinas into quivering mush.

Spike howled and felt his way back inside to the stairwell, where he smashed out the extinguisher he'd passed every night for the past eight years with a fist, pulled the pin and doused himself in stinging foam. "Bloody, bleeding fuck!"

Yellow globs danced where vision should be as he stumbled back up the stairs to the second floor, banging on every door he passed until the pantless podge answered at the end of the hall.

"What the hell is going on out there? Shit, is there a fire?"

"Yes, there's a bloody fire! Invite me in, I need your phone!"

"Is the fire upstairs? You're from the third floor, right?"

Spike smelled his way to the man's open doorway and smacked his nose against the barrier. _Fuck_. "Invite me in!"

"Uh, phone's over on the table…"

"Are you bloody deaf? I can't get to the bloody phone on the bloody table unless you say 'Come in!'"

The wally threw up his robed arms in Spike's bleached out vision. "Come in, come in, already! Jeeze!"

Spike shouted some more until he got directions to the table in question. Then it was trying to punch the right numbers.

"Uh, shouldn't you be dialing 911?"

Spike held out a hand while he waited for the SF directory to kick in.

"You know, I told the super we needed to rewire in here," the man said, putting on his pants and slippers. "Those old copper switches are a disaster waiting to happen."

"Fire Department, Mission District," Spike told the automated prompt in a forced voice. The line connected and the department's dispatcher answered.

"The fire at Guerrero and 22nd this morning," he blurted. "I need to know, did they find a girl inside? The firemen, did they find a woman, did they find my Buffy?"

"Sir, no casualties were reported at the scene. The fire was called in by a passerby at 6:23 this morning; it had started sometime during the night. Sir, are you reporting someone missing? Sir?"

Spike put the receiver down and collapsed into the ghost of a chair. He dropped his singed head into his hands and ceased to move.

When he raised his head again later it was to the scent of her tear-streaked face. He dropped to his knees on the deserted floor and hugged her so hard she gasped.

"It's okay, sweetie," she said, stroking what was left of his blackened hair. "It's all gone. But I'm okay. We're going to be okay."

They lay in bed together, soot mussing the sheets, too numb to do much of anything but hold each other. Sorrys were whispered: "Sorry I wasn't there. Sorry I worried you so. Sorry I couldn't call. Sorry for everything." At some point Spike drifted into sleep. In his dreams he saw fire all around them, burning the hardwood floors, the walls, the bed. They lay holding each other as the world fucking burned. An inhuman sound came to him--measured footsteps walking along the street below their flame-wreathed window. Angel's voice said, "Don't fuck up."

Spike woke and sat up from where Buffy lay curled next to him, her beautiful hair marked with his dirty hands. He listened. Common street sounds drifted in. Daylight still burned outside the shutters.

Spike shook her gently. "Buffy, wake up, sweetheart."

"Hmm?" Her eyes fluttered open, still puffy and red.

"I need you to look outside the window for me, love. See if anyone's watching us."

She rubbed her face and sat up. "What?"

"I thought…I heard something out there."

"Heard what?"

"I don't know, the demon, maybe."

"What demon? You mean the one we never caught? Why would it be outside?"

"It came back before, when you were gone; I didn't tell you. It's still playing me. I was dreaming and I thought I heard it like before, walking about. Can you please go have a look?"

She eyed him strangely but did as he asked. She got up and peeled the shades back. Sunlight warmed her face as she peeked out.

"Look down, Buffy, below the window."

"There's no one there, Spike. No one's looking. Just city people walking around." She let the shade fall back. "That's what you must have heard. Just people."

Spike sighed and lay back down. "Something's playing us. I know it. Why else would this happen. Why now?"

Buffy combed her hair back from her face. "Spike, I can't do this right now…"

He shut his eyes. "I know, I know. I'm sorry. Never mind it all. Just come let me hold you."

And she did.

Buffy sat in their living room the following day surrounded by piles of singed papers carefully laid out into piles in the floor. Her calculator was balanced on her knees. The keys were misshapen and melted, but by some miracle still workable. They made sick sounds as she tapped them. The Fire Marshall had let them back in the shop's melted doors the previous night under close guard to salvage what they could. The excavation had amounted to little more than the blackened contents of one small moving box. The cause of the fire had yet to be determined, and as with any new business, insurance fraud was always the first suspicion.

Spike did what he could to stay out of her way. Not to hover. But damn his already damned soul, it bloody hurt to see her like this. She was at it for hours, sorting and taping bits of ledgers, invoices and facsimiles. He kept himself off her radar until sundown when he made the mistake of bending over to finger a crispy spreadsheet that was escaping by way of the underside of the couch.

"Don't," she said, snatching the paper out of his hand. "I have a system going here."

"I could help, maybe."

She glanced at him as she ran more numbers. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Buffy, please. Anything. Just let me help you."

She sighed. "Look, I don't need you messing things up and making it even more difficult."

"I'm sorry," he said, easing down beside her on the couch, touching her shoulder. "Buffy, I'm so sorry."

She flinched his hand away.

"I--_dammit_. Why can't you see I'm as broke up over this as you are."

She gave him a cold look. "Are you? Really? How many times did you complain about me working late?"

He sighed. "Buffy, that's not…"

She turned away from him and resumed her wobbly number punching.

"That's not fair and you know it."

"Really? You want to know what's not fair? It's giving away your life over and over again to a world that just doesn't give a shit. Doesn't need anything from you anymore. God knows what I didn't give up for this stupid world so that stupid men and women in stupid business suits could get up in the morning, go to work and God help them, order a stupid fucking sandwich on their lunch breaks!"

Color flew into her face. A rage was rising in her and he wanted so very badly to gentle it.

"Buffy, I know you can't see it right now, but sometimes I have to believe things happen for a reason. I won't pretend to know how or why this happened, but someday, you'll see..."

She shook her head. "That's just…genius coming from you."

"Buffy…"

"What the hell are we going to do for money, Spike? Have you Pollyanna'd that one out?"

"I'll get a job."

She sputtered out a laugh. "Yeah, right."

"I can earn an honest night's pay, Buffy. I have before. And there's the cash Giles sends--"

"No. I'm not taking money from him. In fact, I've been sending it back."

"Good of you to inform me of that. So I take it your watcher knows about us now?"

She shook her head. "I'm not thinking about him right now. All I can think about is the big black oozing mess where my restaurant used to be. And we don't have the reasons. We won't get the reason because that's just how this world works. If anyone has the reason it should be you, you were there last."

Spike sucked his teeth. "You want to blame me now. Right. That's awful convenient. But then, I always was, wasn't I?"

"Spike, just shut up."

"No, I'm not going to bloody shut up. I want to know what you're thinking, Buffy. Because Christ knows you leave me out of it most of the time."

She wouldn't look at him, just stared at her little warped adding machine. Her voice was even. "All I want to know is if there was anything out of place that night when you locked up. You claim to have this perfect memory. Was the oven off? Was the back door bolted? Were the cigarette butts you leave lying all over the place crushed out?"

Spike stood up. "You want to know if I saw anything out of place that night? Well, I'll tell you, yeah, I did. Something pretty damn obvious. I saw Angel."

Her head jerked up at him. "What?!"

"Angel. He was there just before I left. Got in my face about you, in fact. They figure what, the fire started a few hours after that? Something small maybe that smoldered half the night before going boom? Sound like anyone we know?"

Buffy got up, facing him. "Spike, have you lost your mind? Angel would never…"

"Oh, Angel wouldn't--not good perfect Angel. No, he has a soul, beyond reproach he is. But Spike, now there's another matter. It must have been him."

Buffy shut her eyes. "Spike, just stop."

"No, Buffy. This thing, this problem we have. It isn't about late nights or burnt shops. It's about what you think of me. And it's bloody piss poor most the time."

"Spike, your unlife's history hasn't exactly been stellar and I'm trying my best to deal with that."

"You deal with it well enough when I'm fucking you."

"Ugh! That's it, isn't it? It always comes back to the sex with you."

"This isn't about…sex. It's about respect. Something you lack a great deal of for me and I'm sick to bloody hell of it. So be honest with me and say it in words. Admit for once that when you wake up all snuggly in our bed against my cold skin that you don't pretend before you open your pretty eyes that it's _him_ playing house with you and not me."

He shut his mouth, but it was too late. She had no answer for him, just a shocked stare. Of all the wild bullets he could have fired at her from his insecurity arsenal, this one hit right on the mark.

"I turned it all around for you, you know, when I didn't have a soul to guide me. I made good and I kept to it, even when you were six-feet under. He tortured and killed your friends, stalked you and your family, tried to take out the whole damned world and still you loved him. I make one, bloody terrible regrettable mistake and you can't forgive me, not ever, soul or no. I'll never be good enough for you, because no matter how bloody hard I try, I'll never be him."

"Angel left me."

"Is that right, love? And you got stuck with the lesser of two evils. Because it had to be a vampire after all, in the end, didn't it? You had to have one of your own, one that you could control and twist around to suit your fancy. And I let you. I beg you for it, and I love you still because this is all I've got. One-hundred and forty years of blood for one chance to hear someone say three little words to me and mean it."

"Spike."

"Say it. Say it to me."

The tears were coming now and he felt them burning in his eyes. She looked pale, but her mouth was frozen.

He reached in his pocket for a smoke and lit it, sucking half of it back in one drag. She was quiet.

"I knew it," he shrugged as the drops fell from his chin onto the hardwood floor. "Don't know why I bother to ask at all anymore." He smoked and rubbed the dampness from his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"Spike..."

He kept his head down. "You're ashamed of me, this little life we have. Don't want old Rupert to know who's been lifting your skirts. Too embarrassing. It's why you didn't tell Dawn about us, either, or Xander, or any of the others I'd wager. It's just fine and dandy as long as they don't know. As long as nobody knows. Well, someone knows now. Angel knows. And that just kills you a little, doesn't it?" He looked at her then, but her eyes were on the coffin nail burning in his hand.

He bit his lip. "One more thing," he said. "Some things are going to change around here. For one, I'll bloody smoke in my own bloody home whenever I bloody well feel like it!" He kicked the nearest chair across the floor, tromped across the room, grabbed his coat, opened the door and slammed it behind him.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

It took only about nine blocks for the rage to wear off and the withering misery to settle in again. Spike loved her and would keep on loving her no matter how little she gave him. He knew he had part of her heart at least, he could sleep decently with that. Christ, where had all of that bloody cack about Angel come from in the first place? And was half of it even true anymore? No showing of his domestic forte was going to clean up the industrial sized can of beans that now coated their living room floor. There was nothing for it now but to walk it off, burn through a pack of smokes and have a good cry under a bridge somewhere. Then he'd come back to her full of sorrys and roses, bed her 'till the walls shook and all would be sweet and good again. It had to be. Spike couldn't bare to think of it otherwise.

_Unforgiven. _Stupid fucking soul. Fat lot of good it did him.

When he'd managed to get the first two items for the night off his agenda, Spike stopped off at the 24-hour Walgreen's on Moraga for a few sundries and a reasonably fresh refrigerated bouquet of red roses. He paused at the corner on his way home for one last smoke to find himself staring at a familiar flashing green neon sign. Fortunes Read--Always Open. _Couldn't hurt_, he thought, so he tucked the flowers under his arm and crossed the street to ring the door chime. Four times.

"Oh, come on. I know you don't sleep--Madame Soto, or whoever the bloody hell you think you are. Let a lovesick vampire in!"

An old Asian woman in a worn jade dress answered the door and pushed out the fly screen, squinting up at him through thick spectacles. "You no vampire," she said, and started to close the door.

He stuck his foot in the screen before it shut. "Like hell I'm not. Look again."

She opened her screen and lifted the glasses higher up her nose. She wrinkled her round face in puzzlement. "Well, fook me. You are vampire. Vampire with soul. That must be big suck for you."

"Yeah, big suck is right. Are you going to invite me in?"

"You got $39.95 plus tax?"

He held the cigarette in his teeth while he dug around in his pockets. "I've got fifty and some change. You get the lot if you polish off the crystal ball for me tonight."

Her slanted eyes went round at the cash. "I give big suck vampire good ball polish, yes."

"Smashing, invite me in."

"Come in! Come in! Value-customer."

He ditched the cigarette and ducked under the bead curtains into her lair. The place looked and smelled like a cheap dim-sum restaurant complete with dozens of foggy oriental fountains and plastic Buddhas lining the carved shelves. She led him into a small windowless room in the back with a heavy scroll-legged table surrounded by giant brass-framed mirrors on the ceiling and each wall.

"So how does this work?" he asked. "You're not going to cut off a lock of my hair or something, are you? Not much of it left at present."

"Vampire sit and shut face. Madame Soto get magic bowl ready."

"Look, you can drop the bad Chinese accent with me. I know you're demon."

"I drop bad Cantonese accent when you drop bad English one," she said, reaching for a high shelf and bringing down a black and red china serving tureen.

"Piss-off, I am English," he said, taking a chair.

"And I am Martha Stewart. Better we not know who each other are for magic bowl."

"Fine," he said, tossing a new pack of smokes on the table. "Mind if I smoke, Martha?"

"I ask magic bowl." She bent her ear to the bowl and listened to the air. Spike tapped one out anyway and flipped open his lighter. "Magic bowl say, 'Vampire smoke good, help with seeing future.'"

"Perfect," he said, lighting up. "Now that the bowl and I are best mates, tell me what you're going to show me."

She set the bowl in the center of the table, filled it with water from an ewer and took a chair opposite him. "Magic bowl very old, come from East buried for three-thousand year. Older than vampire, eh?"

"Sure."

"Ancestor pass magic bowl down daughter to daughter to Madame Soto. Very wise. Very powerful."

"Touching story--make the damn thing do something; I don't have all bloody night."

Madame Soto closed her eyes behind her thick glasses and gibbered something in a quick demon language, then she reached out and rubbed her hands rhythmically along either side of the lip of the bowl. Vibrations stirred up the water until droplets began to shoot up out of it and into the air where they froze, caught in the reflections of the five mirrors.

"Ah," she said, looking up into the condensing droplet pool over her head. "I see woman, pretty woman."

Spike leaned in, looking up. "Really? What's she doing?"

"Throwing many TV Guide and romance books in trash can."

He rubbed his eyebrow with a thumb. "Lovely."

"Yes. _Forbidden Isle Passion_ very best seller last year. I like. No go in trash."

"I like, too." He shrugged and filled his lungs with smoke, blowing it up into the mirror pool. "What else of mine is she binning?"

"I see you have bad luck love fight with pretty lady. She get mad, throw vampire out, yes?"

"Yeah, that's the whole sodding story, more or less. How can you see this? All I see is a whirl of piss up there."

"No need bowl to see love fight. You come to door with convenience store roses."

He glanced at the bouquet defrosting on the polished wood surface next to him. "Look, I don't need a replay of the mess I made out of tonight. What I need to see is if I have a shot in hell of making good with the misses. You can do that for me, right?"

"You want bowl show future? I tell bowl." She altered her angle of bowl masturbation until the wet cloud separated and reclumped in the mirror view. "Ah, I see pretty lady scrubbing dried blood out of copper pot. She no dump you yet."

"Well, that's comforting. At least she's not hitting me over the head with it. How far ahead are you looking?"

"Five, six days. Oh, who is this?"

"Huh?"

"I see other man outside happy home, standing in dark under window where vampire and pretty lady make boom-boom."

"What other man?"

"Black hair, missing eye, how you say--hunk."

Spike leaned forward. "That's my demon."

"One-eyed hunk-man for you? What pretty lady think of that?"

"No! It's some human-turned-demon I killed years ago. It's been stalking me. Can you tell me anything about it?"

"Hmm, black-hair hunk not demon. Not human, either. Hunk not from Hell. You get nice man from Heaven come visit apartment when pretty lady is out."

Spike choked on his own smoke. "Get-out, no heavenly creature's ever stepped barefoot into my flat. You've got the wrong address, love. Besides, this thing _was_ human once. I killed it, left my calling card in its skull."

"No. You vampire of small brain, not see clear. This man angel, not devil. He come for you. They all come for you. In him. Show you their light. Give you big piss-off like you say."

Spike laughed, then shook his head to try and make sense out of it. "You're fucking with me, aren't you?"

"No funny. Madame Soto no fook vampire--angel for real. Angel bring bad luck for vampire and pretty lady, yes?"

"Oh, you have no idea…"

"Eh…?"

"All right, so say I buy this holy visitation story for a minute. What's it want with me? A cheery round of Hail Marys? Afternoon bingo? Why's it playing me? Why's it not got on with the avenging, fists to fangs, if that's what sort of angel this is?"

"Wait…" she said, blinking back up into the swirls. I see…angel like to watch vampire sleep. Like to hear vampire dream."

"I got that much out of it already. Rather fancies my bed. Bit of a pervert, I think, if they've loosened the straps on that kind of thing upstairs. Otherwise, what's it wanting my dreams for?"

"For make good pretty lady."

"Excuse me?"

"Yes, angel steal dreams to make pretty lady for vampire."

"Bollocks. You trying to say my Buffy's a figment of my imagination? Stolen from dreams? That is funny."

"You call pretty lady, Buffy? You do read too much romance book. I throw out, too. Hunk-angel spend many months making good Buffy to please vampire, yes?"

"Right…I tried that one before, on my own--well, with a little help. Had me some fun but for a few glitches in the programming. There was no mistaking it. Not the case this time. I'd _know_. "

"You big dumb vampire think you know difference? You not know power of God!"

Spike flicked his cigarette into the splattering bowl, extinguishing it with a puff and sizzle. The spell broke and the water overhead dropped to the table, soaking them both. Spike stood up, cursing and flicking water off his coat sleeves. He shook his hair out and slapped two damp twenties and a ten on the table. Madame Soto sat stunned, dripping and blinking behind her thick glasses at him.

"Thanks for the show, love. You may have a reputation in this town, but you're wrong this time. See, the bird and me, we're long-time sweethearts, as odd as that may be. You might be right about my demon, but you're dead wrong about my girl."

He picked up the rinsed roses and saw himself out through the beaded jungle, irritated he'd wasted good pocket money on the whole damp business. Madame Soto shuffled after him calling, "Wait! Wait! There is more!"

Spike silenced her with a raised hand as he opened her door. "I've heard enough. Don't take it so hard. We all have bad nights. This one in particular. You are right about one thing, though. I don't know the power of the Almighty, he and I have never crossed paths. But I have met the Devil, you see, and he grinned ear to ear when he shook my hand."

Spike keyed open the door slowly when he got home. Buffy was waiting for him, sitting up in the middle of the couch. The living room floor was cleared of debris and swept. A box of tissues sat next to her. Her face was washed and dry and her hair was combed prettily.

He moved in, roses first, but something in her eyes told him they wouldn't be needed after all. "You all right, pet?"

She stood up, straightened her fresh shirt, walked over and took him by the arm. She sat him down in a chair by the wall and stood in front of him, arms crossed over her chest. He dropped the roses on the floor with a wet thump, folded his hands in his lap and waited.

"You were right, Spike, about Angel. I do compare you to him when I shouldn't--it only hurts you and makes things harder. I admit it. Those things you said tonight, I…

"Buffy, I was a complete bastard tonight. I had no right, after all you've been through--"

"Spike, please. Don't steal my thunder. Just sit there and listen to me, okay?"

He shut it and nodded.

She fingered her shirt collar and started over. "I'm know I'm not easy to love. Maybe as a daughter and sister I do all right, but as a girlfriend, I totally suck. I just drive guys away one right after the other. I used to blame the whole slayer gig for it. But you know what? That's all gone. All in the past and what do you know? I'm no different. Anyone wants to get close to me, I just push and push…" she started to choke up, but caught herself.

"So here's the thing of it, what I can't seem to get through to myself is that no man's ever loved me like you do. No matter what I do, no matter what awful things I say, you always come back even when I've been nothing but a first-class bitch to you. You see me as I am and yet you somehow manage to… I've done a lot of things in my life I'm not proud of, and the worst has been denying my feelings for you--to you, to my friends, to myself. I don't even know why I do it, but I've done it for so long, I guess it's just been too hard to stop."

"Buffy, it's all right; I don't mind."

"No, you do mind. I spend our days together walking all over you like a bathmat. But you're not a bathmat, or a doormat, or dammit, _any_ kind of mat, you're a vampire--you think and feel and act like a vampire. One with a soul, even when you didn't have one. It's your nature and I love that about you, how passionate you are and how devoted...what I'm trying to say is..."

"Buffy..."

"Shut up, Spike, and let me get this out. What I'm trying to say is...that I do love you and have for a long time. When you walked out of here tonight…Spike, I don't know what I would do if I lost you, too. If you ever stopped loving me. I don't think I could stand it, being alone like that again…" her eyes lowered with memory for a moment, then she raised her head. "So this time I'm going to say it to your face and get it right. I love you."

He was stunned a moment. Then a smile crept across his face. "Say it again."

She took a breath. "I love you."

He grinned again and reached for her. Her own shaky smile grew as she came down into his lap so he could draw his fingers through her hair. "Yeah, I like the sound of that. Quite a bit." He kissed her softly on her perky nose, his eyes deep in hers where everything was wonderful now. "Say it again."

"I love you," she murmured against his lips. "I love you." And his arms wound around her as they kissed, like the serpent who finds his home in Eden at last.


	19. Chapter 19

**A Dying Dream – Chapter Nineteen**

**Summary: **A decade after closing the Hellmouth and doin' time in Hell, Spike is living alone in San Francisco when he encounters Buffy unexpectedly. At a loss of what to do with themselves in a nearly demonless world filled with superslayers, they try to rebuild a life together. Unfortunately, not all of their demons have been laid to rest--not the ones within nor without. This is AU for Angel S5. S5 had not aired yet when I began writing this after BtVS closed its doors at the conclusion of S7. Is this 'verse, Spike went to hell after closing the hellmouth. Hope that clears up the confusion.

**Notes: **Here's a fic I dropped like a rock ages ago, many apologies. It was largely due to illness, which I am now on the mend with. Now that I've been sucked back into vampiredom thanks to Moonlight, some of my new readers are nosing through my old Buffy stuff and asking that I resurrect some of my dropped vamp plots. I did have most of this story finished back in the day, so here's my best effort at completing it. It has about six more chapters to go. Root me along! Feedback is my crack! Thanks, Sowell, for the kick in the arse.

**A Dying Dream - Chapter Nineteen**

**by europanya**

A moment of perfect happiness. It had been Angel's undoing and now Spike could understand why--when life's got you all caught up so good, got your heart filled up to burst and it feels so bloody damned good it hurts. How can a man who's been denied perfect love begin to comprehend what he feels when it is at last dangled in front of his nose. Therein lies madness--and Spike could feel himself balanced on the edge of it.

"How do we know," he whispered in the darkness. "How do we know if any of this is real?" Despite the whirl of his head, Spike still felt anchored by a familiar heaviness. S_oul still good._

Buffy stirred beneath him, halfway to sleep, her fingertips moving softly across his back. "I guess if it wasn't, someone would come along any minute with sliced cheese or a satchel full of cold cream and tip us off."

Spike smiled and nosed himself under her chin where he settled in, skin to skin, letting the scent of their lovemaking retell the evening. Time was he'd need to gather up the tossed rugs and broken furniture to find some scrap of olfactory evidence that the slayer had recently been his, bruised and bloodied, spread wide and hissing. He could hardly compare the two—the Buffy that was once a flash of cold fire to the woman who now caressed and kissed him willingly and seemingly without regret.

"Well, if the night dragons don't come calling, I'll count myself lucky because somehow all of this is still unreal to me. Has been ever since you walked in out of the rain for a cup of—ow!?" Spike's hand moved to his ass to cover the pinch. "Bloody hell, you could pull back on the supergirl powers once in a while. I get your point."

"Just want to make sure you're not confusing me with a robot again."

Spike paused a moment and sighed, easing against her. "I didn't say I didn't think _you_ were the real deal, love, but somehow this whole second chance I'm having...sorry, _we're_ having. I just can't say as I trust it rightly yet."

It was Buffy's turn to sigh then, with another kind of regret. "I don't blame you, I know I'm not the easiest girl to..."

"No! Buffy, I'm not putting anything on you. This has nothing to do with you at all...you see...it's...well...I hope you've been to visit the loo recently, because I feel a monologue coming on."

"I'm good for the next half hour if I don't fall asleep first."

"Very well then," he said, snuggling her tight and speaking to the soft warmth of her breast. "It's just what I'm trying to say is...I didn't really know what I was signing up for when I first let Dru put her cold hands on me. But I had an idea. The thing of it was, I didn't care. I wanted a way out of my misery, out of mediocrity. She seemed the right bird to do it and I flew right on out with her. Not a look back.

"I used to think that maybe this was all just about blood and fangs, hunter and the hunted, the quick and the dead--that being a vampire somehow fit a balance. A bear will kill to eat, after all, no one blames him. Maybe I was a bear and who's to say I shouldn't enjoy it? But I was only lying to myself. A bear doesn't tie up its prey and taut it for days, frighten it senseless, deny it warmth and decency. It doesn't try to make it beg and cry--it feels the need and it kills and takes it down. I never did that. It wasn't any fun. For over a century it never occurred to me it should go any other way. I knew I'd be punished of course. All vampires know this, and whether or not they'll admit to it, we do fear it. I did for the longest time, that's why I fought so hard not to see it done--to get offed by some lucky stroke.

"That's when Angelus comes in with telling William about the slayer--that she'd do it me good if she got half a chance and I knew I'd have to get even better at my game to keep sharp. And I did, I got so good I had to go prove it and now there's two slayers who met their ends by me. Just because I wanted to and when the first one went down, I lost my fear. Immortality will do that to man, trick him into thinking nothing can touch him. Invincible. I was wrong about that, too, because I fell in love with you."

Buffy's fingers moved through his hair in answer.

"Did I ever tell you how that went down? The falling part? It's the oldest joke in the book. I had a sodding dream about you, not like I hadn't had any before except this time, I wanted you to kill _me_, invited you to do it and when you hesitated, took you by the neck and kissed you--and it rang through me brighter than any kill." He shrugged. "Woke up arse-over-teakettle for you, love. Pathetic, isn't it?"

He raised his head. She smiled, but looked away.

"So that's when I first began to think," he said, drawing circles around her navel with his fingertip. "Well, this is it. It's arrived. My punishment. They can't kill me, send me to Hell, so they'll bring Hell here. Torture me with a hunger I can't ever quench--and stake my heart while they're at it with your indifference. I felt that, believe it. You took it as nothing, and probably still do--but to William the Bloody, it was death. He died, went away in a puff of dust. So now here's poor Spike, sorry sack, limping about like a git trying to learn how to be good so the pain will stop.

"I got the hang of it, somewhat, being a noble vampire--as cracked as that notion is. There's not too many of us and you know us both. We weren't built for it, the suit doesn't quite fit, but we put it on anyway and do our best. I was doing my best and as you saw it, the pain got less, by just a little--so there you go, we'll kill the girl, make her take a fall and kick poor Spike in the arse again. The powers, they were getting smarter, you see. Took you away to someplace I could never follow, cheeky bastards, they know their game. This time maybe their money was on Spike taking a nice walk in the sunshine and torching himself on home already--but they weren't counting on Dawn. She needed me and I couldn't go, not until she was safe. Not until she was no longer a part of this world--that's the promise I made. But we never saw that play out 'cause the witch brought you back and I didn't know what to make of that.

"You were back, and I loved you, and I had you, and it was…beyond anything I could have imagined. I thought, how is this right? What did I do to make this right? But that was just the novice in me speaking. I didn't see what was coming, I didn't see what new pain would come--what I would do, to you, once that axe came barreling down to take off my head and drive me mad. So, I ruined it. Whatever was left, I ruined it and walked right into their trap when I took back my soul.

"It only got harder after that. My soul--connecting to the thousands upon thousands I had destroyed. I felt them as if I were down a bottomless pit all filling up with souls until you looked in and reached out a hand. I won't ever understand why. For certain I didn't deserve it. Not this time. Not after what I'd done to you. But you took me in your arms and held me because I had taken it on and I thought, again, how is this right? What did I do? If I get another chance with her, I must be certain I've earned it--so I became your champion and Hell took me at last.

"But it didn't, there's the rub, Hell spat me right back out. And what's more you came back to me and here I am, again, wondering-- What did I do? How did I earn this? Because, Buffy as hopelessly, blissfully, nauseatingly happy as I am right now, I know with utter certainty, that the other shoe has yet to drop, that the big switch is just waiting to bring it on and whip my arse good and clean. I know it. I'd be a damned bloody fool not to."

She lay still for long moments, seemingly digesting what he had at last confessed. "Buffy? Say something, love."

"I don't feel that way about you, about us," she said, staring at the ceiling. "It's not how I see it. I'm not like you and Angel, I don't think somebody's up there, or down there as the case may be, with a golf pencil keeping score. Things happened between us for good and bad, because that's just our history, what made us who we are now. I don't care about it. I'm happy, I'm safe and I feel loved. That's all I want."

He thought it over. Felt some relief in her analysis. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this has nothing to do with me at all. Wouldn't come as a surprise considering how damned self-centered I am. Maybe they brought me out of Hell for you. Maybe you're not my reward--maybe I'm yours."

She looked at him and laughed. "Now that is ridiculous. You're more like a case of the flu than a fruit basket. But I've caught you anyway and intend to keep you--coughs, sneezes and all."

He smiled, the large kind that made his face want to break. "Thank God for that. Thank somebody. If I had the right post, I'd mail them a card."

He settled back against her and for once his soul felt full and light. Her breathing calmed and evened and Spike felt there was no place in heaven or earth that could be more wonderful. Sleep was coming, falling over him like drapery, blocking out the light. A thought broke through just at the last, as the part down the center threatened the final shaft of daylight.

"Buffy. How did you find me?"

"Hm?" She stirred under him. "What?"

"How did you know where to find me, when you came back?" Spike could recall seeing her come into frame, the facelessness of the _Rage_ patrons, morphing and passing and then there was her.

"There was a kid. He told me where to find you. I'd been asking around."

"What kid?"

"I dunno, some skater dude. I didn't get his name. He had a lot of tattoos. Why? What does it matter?"

_Ronny_. Spike's soul chose then to speak. And unbidden there was Angel, in his face, pompous arse. _ Last I heard she was living in a tract home near the crater._

"No, it doesn't matter, pet. Go back to sleep."


End file.
